Only the start of this folks the fight aint over by a long shot! Keep er lit dont take shit xoxo, reads the caption of an Instagram story post from The Mary Wallopers.

On June 21, several performers played a special solstice concert to support the campaign to save C Chulainn's Castle.

Louth Council granted permission to Grandspect Ltd to build more than 1000 housing units near the historical site, just outside of Dundalk.

The government uses these arguments to shame people, but the real problem is the houses being hoarded by landlords, said Charles Hendy of The Mary Wallopers at the charity gig. There are so many empty houses, loads of buildings and land, and greedy landlords wont share it.

C Chulainn's Castle, also known as Dn Dealgan, is a national monument in State guardianship said to be the birthplace of Irish mythological hero C Chulainn.

An online petition which has garnered over 10,250 signatures claims that the development "risks permanently damaging the visual character, heritage value, and archaeological integrity of the area."

The permission to build was granted under 51 conditions, including that one apartment block be reduced in size and that a 50m buffer area is implemented around the recorded monuments.

Meryl Streek has built his reputation on uncompromising spoken-word punk that confronts everything from political disillusionment to social inequality. On 'Rags To Riches', the Dublin artist shifts the focus inward, delivering a rallying cry about taking chances, cutting ties and refusing to let fear dictate your future.

The sentiment feels hard-earned rather than sentimental, reflecting Streek's own journey from DIY outsider to one of Ireland's most distinctive punk voices.

I took a chance with this project and if I had never taken the jump I wouldn't be here right now, he said.

Things aren't always as hard as they seem. It's about having the courage to let go of people holding you back and encouraging yourself that you can do it.

Meryl Streek. Photo: Derek Bremner

Bricknasty, bobinov

Bricknastys new single, bobinov, is a groove-heavy return that bridges the gap between indie, soul, and alt-sensibilities. Theres a wonderful, psychedelic elasticity to the beat here, reminiscent of Steve Lacys low-slung cool, but its underscored by the kind of emotional weight that has become a hallmark of the Bricknasty world.

Fatboys delivery remains the anchor with his vocals navigate the space between vulnerability and resolve with ease. Its a mission accomplished. bobinov is wonderfully chaotic, melodic, and undeniably addictive.

This song comes from our time touring overseas just wanting to inject more energy into the live show and show case tight song writing that blasts angst and feeling out of it so we can rock the shop and give people that buzz when we're all in the room says Fatboy.

Kate Prendergast, 'Exhale'

Kate Prendergast has released her track Exhale via Stray Dog records today. Prendergast blends genres, mixing elements of folk, blues, country and alternative rock. The reflective song lyrics are emotionally dynamic and reminiscent of Jeff Buckley, Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift.

'Exhale' reveals the emotional turmoil of struggling to maintain a one-sided relationship. The multi-instrumentalist has two EPs in the works, as well as a growing list of live performances set to take place in the Summer including, Galway Folk Festival and Your Roots are Showing.

Slowpoke, 'Sink Or Swim'

Dublin band Slowpoke released their new song Sink Or Swim on Monday, July 20. The single comes off the back of their first release Montana in June, showcasing their Alternative rock sound.

Featuring raspy vocals, flowing guitar riffs and a stop-start beat, it strikes the perfect weight between cinematic dramatism and simplicity. The four-piece band draw from 90s grunge and alternative rock influences using gradual melodic build up and powerful guitar tones. The bands instagram has said that there will be lots of music coming very soon.

Photo Credit: Instagram

Diveboy, Im Not The Only One

The Cork indie-rockers continue with their rich, nostalgia-soaked indie sound with their newest single Im Not The Only One. Diveboys new single explores themes of heartache while maintaining a beat that makes you want to get up and dance.

The song tells a story of loving someone who has been living abroad, capturing the bittersweet experience of time spent together before facing a difficult goodbye, knowing it will be a long time before youre reunited. Reflecting on distance, longing and connection, the track also speaks to the way loved ones bring out the best in us, reminding us of who we are when we're with them.

Diveboy credit: Jamie Moore

Fin Furey, Move Closer

As the son of Irish folk icon Finbar Furey, Fin Furey has steadily forged his own path, blending traditional storytelling with contemporary influences. On 'Move Closer', however, he ventures into fresh territory, embracing vibrant electronic production while retaining the heartfelt lyricism that has become his trademark.

Built around irresistible grooves, live instrumentation and an atmospheric pulse, the track captures the excitement of an instant connection, balancing dancefloor energy with emotional sincerity. Furey's warm, expressive vocal remains the focal point, bringing an authenticity that elevates the song beyond polished pop.

Fin Furey

Strange Boy, Foul feat. Rebel Phoenix

Strange Boy continues to blur the boundaries between hip hop and Irish traditional music on 'Foul', an arresting collaboration with fellow Limerick artist Rebel Phoenix. Taken from his forthcoming album Say Nothin', the track pairs razor-sharp lyricism with a rich backdrop of bodhrn, flute, banjo and guitar, creating a sound that feels rooted in Ireland's storytelling traditions while remaining unmistakably contemporary.

You have no power to stop what's happening, so you just become a product of your own time and circumstance" said Strange Boy.

Drawing on his upbringing in Caherdavin, Strange Boy reflects on the lasting impact of growing up amid poverty, violence and addiction. His spoken-word delivery is both intimate and uncompromising, examining how childhood experiences shape identity long before there's any chance to understand them.

Strange Boy

The Butterfly Graveyard, Big City

The Butterfly Graveyard continues to carve out a distinctive niche with 'Big City', a beautifully understated slice of indie melancholy. The Cork artist's latest single tells the story of two star-crossed lovers chasing the promise of a fresh start, capturing both the excitement and uncertainty of leaving everything behind.

Built around shimmering guitars, atmospheric production and a delicately delivered vocal, 'Big City' unfolds with quiet confidence, allowing its emotional weight to emerge naturally rather than relying on grand gestures. There's a timeless quality to the songwriting, balancing intimacy with an expansive sound that evokes late-night city lights and endless possibility.

The Butterfly Graveyard

Binmen, 'Talking to Robots'

Wicklow four-piece Binmen lean into the absurdities of online romance on Talking To Robots, a tongue-in-cheek post-punk track about falling for an artificial companion.

Driven by a brisk, upbeat rhythm, the song balances wiry guitars with a playful sense of unease. Its central idea could easily have tipped into novelty territory, but Binmen keep things sharp, using the robot romance as a neat way into questions of loneliness, projection and modern connection.

Binmen credit: Cian O'Donnell

Vonnie, 'Side Profile'

Vonnies debut single Side Profile is an indie rock ballad written by an artist whose goal is catharsis. It explores the devastation of unrequited love, showing the beauty in heartbreak without reverting to the all-too-common sad love song script. With a voice strikingly similar to Adrienne Lenker, a raw, delicate sound and overwhelmingly relatable lyrics, Vonnie delivers a brilliant piece to mark the beginning of her catalogue.

The song features earnest, playful lyricism set against emotionally guttural vocals. Think Courtney Barnetts slacker-rock sensibilities with the dark comedic ballads of Father John Misty.

With her cynically optimistic musings, Vonnie is unique in a way that captivates. She will perform the newly-released single at ORegans Pub on Sunday.

Vonnie, credit: Niamh Barry

Asylum Road, Desolate

Groove metal band Asylum Road have released their newest single, Desolate, as a follow up to their EP Cerca Trova. The song features their characteristic heavy riffs, intricate rhythms and visceral vocals. Delivering a raw, crushing punch, Desolate establishes the band as a force to be reckoned with.

Desolate' is a track that delves into everything about our world, ourselves and interactions that are inimical, adversarial, malicious, truculent and virulent, wrote the band. From our own thoughts and feelings, to the actions of those around us and nature itself, Desolate is brimming with all the vitriol and contagion that is possible on this earth.

Asylum Road

Caitrona OSullivan, Love Me Tonight

Irish singer Caitrona OSullivan is back with a Nashville-style single Love Me Tonight. Co-written by her and Irish country singer Johnny Brady, the track features an Americana style different to her traditional Irish sound. A familiar face to many for her appearance on TV as a resident judge on Glr Tre, TG4, Caitrona is looking to expand her music and Love Me Tonight does just that. She just finished up the showcase of her new song in Nashville and will return to Ireland for her musical collective, Women of ires (W.O.), debut show.

Love Me Tonight features an intoxicating fusion of Nashville, Americana and Pop Country musical styles that will be enjoyed by fans of Ella Langley, The Chicks, Lady A and the likes.

Caitrona OSullivan

Peer Pleasure, Meat Inside

Wexford band Peer Pleasure have released a new single Meat Inside that showcases their abrasive, punk-blues sound. The over 6-minute long track delivers a snarling, playful, boisterous groove. For a band that undoubtedly knows who they are and what theyre about, Meat Inside comes as a welcome addition to their catalogue. The finale that keeps you guessing when the songs truly ended perfectly encapsulates Peer Pleasure: a fire refusing to be put out.

Each line is kind of a really petty and personal call out to our enemies past, present and future that only they would really get, they said. Its a messy song that kind of channels the energy of a dirty night out where someones fallen out, someones missus has gone home early annoyed and that one lad is about to start a fight again!

Peer Pleasure, credit: Anna Moody

The Whileaways, Dont Say Youre Gone

Galway trio The Whileaways return with a beautifully optimistic new single. A song that embraces friendship and hope, Dont Say Youre Gone comes as the first release from their upcoming fifth studio album, When You Are Falling.

Characteristically emotionally resonant, the song features a contemporary folk sound, blending in traditional Irish elements. Their acoustic sound, like their other tracks, invokes feelings of familiarity and a sense of harmony. It brings a refreshingly joyful take to a music scene too often plagued by melancholy.

Its about leaning on each other, finding positivity and embracing the light, even when thats hard to do, said the band.

The Whileaways, credit: Ruth Medjber

Last Apollo, 'Home'

Last Apollo, real name Lucy Rice, in advance of her debut album Ill Walk Towards Youreleased her new single Home on July 17. The song builds with a classy string section to support her sweet breathy vocals. When she sings Goodbye Baby her voice and the piano sync up to match notes showing Rices connection to the music. The introduction of drums and further dramatic strings, with a resonant cello creates a rich soundscape. The simple piano and her voice transports you to a time in the past.

Her vocals are reminiscent of Fiona Apple and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief. Her album is set to be released on September 4.

Last Apollo delivered an awe-inspiring headline set at The Grand Social said Hot Press in 2024. Each one of us were attending a spiritual event.

Last Apollo.

Beauty Sleep, 'We Don't Talk About It'

Alt-pop duo Beauty Sleep, comprising producer/songwriters Cheyenne Murphy and Ryan McGroarty, release their new single We Dont Talk About It on July 21. The track comes from the Derry pairs second album The Whole Damn Cake, released late last year.

Blending synth-pop, indie rock guitar and autotuned vocals, the song is a dreamy reflection of avoiding discomfort in relationships. The album is entirely self-produced, with the pair recording almost every element. They are set to appear at the Fleadh this coming summer, following performances at Stendhal Festival and 2000trees.

Photo Credit: Billy Woods

Chasing Abbey, Greedy Pigs

The Irish trio have released their new song Greedy Pigs on July 22. The single comes ahead of their upcoming album CYBER CELT, set to release on September 18, and world tour. The trio incorporate elements of traditional Irish music, creating an electronic fusion that puts a contemporary spin on Irelands past. Their tour includes a stop at Dublins Vicar Street and Belfasts Limelight.

Photo Credit: @fargos_photos

Smithereens, 'Road 3'

Cork-based Smithereens create the purest blend of jazz and rock with their new track Road 3, that feels akin to the yellow street lights of a lively European city at night.

Road 3 was born of a late-night jam between five best friends. It's probably the best example of our mix of genres and influences, blending funk, jazz, rock and grunge. Like a lot of our favourite songs, it started with no real plan beyond sitting in the groove and seeing where it took us. The result is a danceable track that doesn't take itself too seriously but still hits hard when it needs to.

The single was released ahead of their upcoming EP, Shapeshift, to be released on August 23.

The band are performing in a multitude of venues from now up until the end of the year, including international dates in the UK and Germany.

3rd Degree, 'Sweet Time'

Jason Burns, also known as 3rd Degree, explores a dreamlike state with Sweet Time. The bass and rhythm transport the song through a vortex of emotions. The single will be released on July 24.

The song was written during his recovery after a life-changing injury in 2024, a direct result of finding strength during difficult times.

This track is very special to me, Burns said. I wrote it during a difficult period, and it's probably the first time I've shown real vulnerability in my music.

Alongside the song release is a music video set along Waterfords Copper Coast, capturing the reflective tone of the track.

KIDD, Podge Collins & tga, 'Sunlight'

Sunlight is a summer anthem and a nostalgic tune. The saxophone heightens the expressive lyrics that centre around the timeline of friendships and how they can fall apart.

After a recent collaboration on KIDDs debut EP Kiddology in December, KIDD, Podge Collins & tga have been producing their first full EP together. Sunlight is the third and final single from the upcoming project.

Tga, supported by KIDD, will be performing a show at Odd Mollies, Drogheda on July 24 to celebrate his debut release REDEYE.

Hurriyya, 'Brothers and Sisters

More than a protest song, Brothers and Sisters is a plea for peace and an end to suffering, depicting the current state of Gaza.

Hurriyya, which is Arabic for freedom, keeps their identity anonymous and encourages listeners to hear the deep, saddening lyrics and not be complicit to what is going on in the world.

Driven by raw grief and frustration over what I see as Western complicity, this song acts as a mournful apology to the people of Palestine, unequivocally calling out the actions of the aggressors, and finally offering a hopeful wish that the 'violence of silence' can end and we will eventually escape this darkness together, the artist said.

Goth Fight Cage, 'UNTAXED VEHICLE EP

Goth Fight Cage is the solo project of Mark Holloway, previously a member of Belfast group Fagish McCann. His latest EP UNTAXED VEHICLE incorporates a lo-fi twist to a typical indie rock style.

Five songs written and self recorded in my uni days back in the old student gaff, Holloway wrote in an Instagram post announcement.

We explore heartbreak, sleep deprivation, fancying your ex girlfriend's mates as well as the art of dodging traffic wardens and the wheel clamping squad.!

Constant Supply, In the Summer

Constant Supply from Donegal, otherwise known as James Gillen has released their new song In the Summer today ahead of his upcoming album The Gist of the Plot Twist, out in September. With brief moments of Blur and The Gorillaz wrapped up the instrumentation and a voice that resembles the rugged-ness of The Pixies, the alt-pop song gently pulls you forward with its quirky and slightly bizarre nature.

Banron, Roseland

Banron, the musical project of songwriter Risn N Haicid, shares a new single Roseland, a track as beautiful as the name implies. The song, taken from her upcoming debut album Untarnishing, captures themes of place, family and identity. Beginning as an assignment during an Adrienne Lenker songwriting workshop and named after her grandparents house, Roseland sees soft, acoustic melodies over confessional and place-driven lyrics.

My mothers side of the family is from Donegal, and I spend a lot of time there visiting my grandparents and other family, so I had a wealth of descriptive imagery to work with, the artist explained. The medium sized house, the dog with two different eyes and the abundance of love that flows from there.

Banron

Cormac Looby and Pdraig Hughes, Youve Done Nothing Wrong

Youve Done Nothing Wrong, the third track off Cormac Looby and Pdraig Hughes debut EP horses, tackles themes of anxiety, growth and loss with a folk-pop sound. The artist was highly influenced from artists like Phoebe Bridgers, Samia and Ben Howard. With introspective lyrics and gentle acoustics, Looby says he found inspiration from attending therapy in person for the first time and some of the issues that came up.

Pdraig Hughes mixed and produced the four track EP completely within the confines of his spare bedroom, with mastering by Pete Maher.

Cormac Looby and Pdraig Hughes

Sharyn Ward, Breaking Bonds

Sharyn Ward's latest single, Breaking Bonds, has Ward stepping into the light as a formidable songwriter with an innate storytelling ability.

Its a bold, deeply personal anthem. A meditation on shedding the past and facing the future with open arms, the track feels like a declaration of independence, one defined by the kind of quiet determination.

Musically, the song is infectious, anchored by the delicate, cello that leads the chorus. Ward embodies country and trad music in a delicate and poised way, bringing something completely unique to the genre.

Niamh Bury, I Havent Gone

With echoes of Norah Jones and a striking similarity to Carole King, Irish singer-songwriter Niamh Bury returns with an intimate new single, I Havent Gone. Exploring the quiet power of love expressed through actions rather than words, the song serves as a gentle reminder that the smallest gestures can often say the most.

Rooted in warmth, restraint, and emotional honesty, the track captures a quiet stability that unfurls into a beautiful chorus of vocal layering. Its quintessential cloudy Sunday morning music, elevated by a slight rasp in Burys delivery that holds a wise vulnerability. Burys rich ability to capture emotion, results in a gorgeous, if all-too-brief, new classic.

Niamh Bury, Photo Credit: Ellius Grace

Pa Sheehy, The Top of Bn Bn

Pa Sheehy, a name synonymous with raw, honest storytelling, returns with his new track The Top of Bn Bn. The song, having already amassed over 600,000 streams after an impulsive online upload, is a set hit.

The track itself embodies the classic folk-pop dynamics of his music. It begins with the quiet, vulnerable intimacy that listeners have come to associate with Sheehys best work, before blossoming into an anthemic chorus. The refrain, Put a statue of Paul on the Top of Bn Bn, is an instant earworm, delivering a singalong moment that feels destined to be chanted from festival fields

Pa Sheehy at Christ Church Cathedral on December 6th, 2025. Copyright Trevor McGrath/ hotpress.com

June, NoBody But You

Emerging from Laois, June weaves together threads of alternative folk, pop, and dance with her new energetic track Nobody But You.

Blending alternative folk, pop, and subtle electronic elements, June leans fully into the tracks soaring melodies, offering a vocal performance that balances raw vulnerability with commanding strength. This ballad mixes the lyrics of a classic singer-songwriter love song and the beat of a pop song. This blend offers something unique to her discography and demonstrates her ability to blend genres.

Paddy Mulcahy, The LFO That could

Limerick experimentalist Paddy Mulcahys latest single, The LFO That Could, constructs a soundscape of synth textures that unfolds with a palpable, creeping sense of unease.

It is an inspiring, hypnotic piece of work that allows the listener to become completely immersed in the machinery of the music. It is a mysterious, compelling, and ultimately rewarding listen.

Paddy Mulcahy

Martin Garrix & U2, Fireflies

'Fireflies, by U2 and Dutch DJ Martin Garrix, premiered at last weekends Tomorrowland festival. The track is a distinct gear-shift, seeing the quartet embracing a modern pop swing that blends a nostalgic 2014 electronic pop with a more alternative rock sound.

Garrix brings a driving energy, but the song remains firmly anchored by the unmistakable DNA of U2. When Bono delivers the chorus, You and I are Fireflies / Born for the summer skies, it hits that specific sweet spot of earnestness that has defined the bands biggest moments.

U2 are setting up for a new album release, set to arrive later this year.

Robbie Doherty, Ah Ah Ah

Northern Irish producer Robbie Doherty is making a compelling case for the dance floor with his latest single, Ah Ah Ah. Its an intense, high-octane club tune that uses evocative synths, which feels undeniably infectious. The pulsing beats, of 'Ah Ah Ah make it a thrilling rave anthem, the perfect soundtrack to your next big night out.

Robbie Doherty at Longitude Festival on July 5th, 2025. Copyright Ryan Smyth/ Hotpress.com

Listen to our playlist:

The track, which features Bono on vocals and The Edge's signature guitar work, received its live premiere during Garrix's headline set at Tomorrowland in Belgium last week, where The Edge joined him onstage for the song's debut.

Speaking about the collaboration, Garrix told NME: "There's always a sense of adventure whenever we get together. Every time Bono and Edge walk into the studio, I know something magical is about to happen."

'Fireflies' marks the latest chapter in the long-running creative relationship between Garrix and U2. The Dutch producer previously collaborated with Bono and The Edge on the official UEFA Euro 2020 anthem 'We Are The People', produced U2's 'Your Song Saved My Life' for the Sing 2 soundtrack, and co-wrote several tracks with Bono, including 'Angels For Each Other', 'Catherina' and 'Weightless'.

The release follows U2s recent unveiling of Street Of Dreams, the lead single from their forthcoming studio album and their first collection of new material since 2017s Songs Of Experience. The band are also set to mark their 50th anniversary in September.

His largest arena tour yet will see dates across March and April in venues such as the Avicii Arena in Sweden, Barclays Arena in Germany, Accor Arena in Paris and The O2 in London, among others. In September he will launch the tour in the US.

The announcement comes after the release of singles Mr. Know It All in April and Break Up In Reverse earlier this month.

Last month, he played his largest-ever headline show in Malahide Castle, with his backing band Freak Freely.

Swims began his music career in Atlanta, Georgia where he sang in his high school choir and did musical theatre. He played in many different music bands and gained attention by posting covers on YouTube before fully rising to prominence in 2023, with the release of his single, Lose Control going viral on TikTok. It peaked at No. 4 on the Irish charts and, among other accolades, earned him a spot at Electric Picnic in 2024.

I remember hearing Al Green for the first time. Id never felt something so deeply, the artist explained of his soul inspirations in an interview with Hot Press. I was like eight years old, but somehow me and twenty other eight-year-olds could all listen to (sings) Im so tired of being alone, and be so moved, even though weve never experienced that kind of heartbreak or love before."

That kind of music speaks out generationally through you," he continued. "It speaks to your past lives its where love and pain really comes from. Real feeling and soul.

Tickets for the Dublin show will go on sale July 31 at 10 am here.

A first look at the album, unreleased original song World Without Love, was released yesterday. It comes alongside a lyric video with Super 8 footage from a Prine family vacation in the early 1970s.

The 10-track record also includes acoustic solo performances, various alternate takes and four other unreleased Prine originals, including Hey Ah Nothin and Dogs in Burlington. Among those tracks are a cover of Johnny Hortons All for the Love of a Girl and a solo acoustic version of Humidity Built the Snowman.

Found Dogs was originally released as a limited-edition run of 2,000 LPs for April Record Store Day. It comes as part of a series of events and tributes for the American folk artists 80^th birthday.

Last month, Oh Boy Records, Prine's former independent record label, released the 2010 concert recording Live at Old Town School of Folk. On October 8, Oh Boy and the Prine family will host Souvenirs: 80 Years of John Prine, a tribute concert at the Chicago Theatre.

Prine, born in Illinois in 1946, released his self-titled debut album in 1971. During his career, he received two Grammy awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

He passed away on April 7, 2020 due to complications from COVID-19.

Watch the lyric video for World Without Love below.

The singer will now perform at the stadium on July 7, 2027, following the previously announced show on July 6.

The concerts will mark Williams first performances in Limerick City and are set to be his only Irish shows of 2027. They follow his sold-out headline appearance at Croke Park last summer.

Williams is currently touring Europe as part of his BRITPOP 2026 Tour, before heading to Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand later this year.

Last month, he performed Desire,the first official FIFA anthem, which he co-wrote with Laura Pausini at the FIFA World Cup final as part of his role as FIFA's official Music Ambassador.

His latest album, BRITPOP, was released in January 2026 and became his 16th UK Number One album, giving him the record for the most chart-topping albums by a solo artist in the UK.

Tickets for the July 7 show can be found here.

The author described the life-changing injuries he sustained after being repeatedly stabbed while preparing to speak at an event in Chautauqua, New York, in August 2022. Rushdie lost sight in one eye and suffered severe damage to his hand and internal organs following the attack.

During his testimony, Rushdie recalled the lasting physical and emotional impact of the assault, describing the extent of his injuries and his recovery in the years since.

"I was on the stage, lying down, with an enormous pool of blood all around me," he said.

"It was an enormous and expansive lake of blood."

The attack came more than three decades after Iran's former supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death following the publication of his 1988 novelThe Satanic Verses,which was deemed blasphemous by some Muslims.

Rushdie has since chronicled his experience in the memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, published in 2024, reflecting on the attack, its aftermath and his return to public life.

Rushdie's attacker, Hadi Matar, is currently on trial on federal terrorism charges after being convicted of attempted murder over the 2022 stabbing. Prosecutors allege the New Jersey man carried out the attack in support of the 1989 fatwa issued against Rushdie over The Satanic Verses, and accuse him of acting on behalf of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

Matar has pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charges and faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Since then, hes become a fringe favourite for his high-concept albums records that tell the stories of sex workers, drug addicts, horny lovers and internet addicts, all from a position of zero judgement.

Late To Set is a solid fifth album. Sonically, the nine songs embrace a panoply of genres typical of Camerons work ranging from indie-rock and bossa nova to jazz and gloomy industrial. His lyrics cover issues like the toppling of historic monuments (Statue Down), illicit affairs (Stand In Man), and wayward hormones mixed with astrology (Testosterone in Blue).

As on each of his previous albums, Cameron occasionally breaks free from the griminess, irony and humour for a handful of anthems so sincere that they shake up the whole concept of the record. OnLate to Set, both anthems come at the very end, with the soaring Red Hook Rain and the chaotically beautiful Violent Man.

8/10

Along with the obligatory inter-band tension, drug-fuelled mayhem and rehab stints, there have also been one or two unconvincing creative detours. The epitome of swaggering, downtown NYC cool frontman Julian Casablancas once memorably compared their teen years to Larry Clarks cult classic film Kids the band made a highly unexpected venture into Rage Against The Machine territory earlier this year.

During their Coachella headliner, the group displayed an array of visuals calling out the CIAs role in overthrowing various international regimes. As powerful a moment as it undoubtedly was, on Reality Awaits, The Stokes wisely forgo an album of barbed political commentary la Gang Of Four or The Pop Group.

Instead, recording in Costa Rica with Rick Rubin who provides satisfyingly crisp production the band largely play to their strengths. Both Dime And Dash and Going To Babble On traffic in the thrilling new wave thats The Strokes stock-in-trade, the former boasting Cure-style guitar, and the latter climaxing with some impressive shredding.

Having flirted with reggae rhythms in the past, the band perhaps influenced by their proximity to the Caribbean here lean harder into the style. The likes of Lonely In The Future, Going Shopping and The Fruits Of Conquest at different times incorporate dub and calypso grooves, which sit nicely with the infectious melodies.

Having said all that, there the kind of idiosyncratic flourishes The Strokes have become increasingly fond over the years. For a start, Casablancas vocals are almost entirely Autotuned which doesnt always pay dividends and the songs have occasional unorthodox sections that are quirky for quirkys sake.

Nonetheless, The Strokes in 2026 are in pretty damn good shape. And as evidenced by the fact they continue to pack out prestige venues around the globe including Dublins 3Arena later this year theyve also become the choice of a new generation of music fans. Not a bad position to be in, all told.

7/10

By the 1990s, that idea had evolved to become a creative method: sampling, remix culture, hip-hop collage, Britpop flashback, magazine nostalgia and the cut-and-paste aesthetics of alternative culture all suggested that Pop was no longer moving incrementally forward. It was raiding the archive, chewing through signs, slogans, old records and past styles, and then presenting the result as the future. Which in a way it was.

The 2000s accelerated this process. If youll forgive the promiscuous citation of genres, Bloghouse, MySpace, electroclash, Ed Banger, nu-rave and indie sleaze created a culture of constant cross-contamination, where songs became remixes, bands became brands, DJs became tastemakers and so on. In the 2010s, record label PC Music with a certain A. G. Cook at the fore made that collapse explicit with what was dubbed hyperpop. In a zone dominated by the internet, artificiality was no longer something to hide; it became the thrill. The vocal could be plastic, the hook cartoonish, the emotion both sincere and a parody at once.

By the 2020s, the archive had exploded completely. TikTok fragments, Tumblr nostalgia, Y2K revivalism, stan-account warfare, luxury-fashion theatre, underground club codes, influencer intimacy, political meme-making and celebrity self-mythology all moved through the same weirdly mashed-up feed.

In the French philosopher Jean Baudrillards account of modern culture, the image is no longer merely a representation of reality; it begins to supersede it. We are on the road to AI. To misquote Fun Boy Three, the avatars have taken over the asylum.

So, where does that leave our quarry, the enigmatic artist on the move that we know as Charli xcx?

Flipping The Focus

For now, lets just say that Charli truly belongs in this super-modern lineage. She does not mourn the cannibalism. She weaponises it. Her Pop is synthetic and hyper-aware. Around her, the song remains central, of course, but it is no longer a thing unto itself. The signs attached to it colour, typography, styling, meme, rumour, attitude, pose can move faster than the music, reproduce more easily, and sometimes become the thing people remember first.

Thus, on the eve of her seventh album Music, Fashion, Film,Charli xcx seems less like a pop star preparing to release an album than the curator of a multi-dimensional cultural happening.

Her last stand-alone album Brat became a global phenomenon: how can you possibly follow that? The new record is preceded by three singles; it has a cover featuring John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese; and a title that reads like a diagram of twenty-first century celebrity.

Credit: Aidan Zamiri

Charli is no longer just writing about the pressures of being seen: the envy, desire, judgment, misunderstanding and social performance that run through Brat. Rather, she is flipping the focus, turning the lens back on the machine that produces those sensations in the first place.

The songs are coming, but the world around them is already in motion. Fans have begun decoding the clues, the cover has become its own cultural argument, and Charli herself seems as interested in talking about Madonna, David Cronenberg, Jean Rollin and Robert Altman as she is in discussing her own music.

This is not evasion exactly. It is Charli shifting attention from the album as a sealed object and moving it to the ceaseless machine that surrounds it. Or is it? We shall see.

The Route to Brat

Born on 2 August 1992, the woman we know as Charli xcx emerged from the unruly back-rooms of the internet. As a teenager, Charlotte Emma Aitchison posted demos to MySpace, took her MSN handle as a stage name, and was soon being booked to perform at East London warehouse parties. On occasion, her parents hovered nearby, parental chaperones amidst nocturnal possibility.

The wider world first encountered her through other peoples work. She featured on Icona Pops 2012 UK No.1 hit I Love It and Iggy Azaleas Fancy - before the hit electropop anthem Boom Clap briefly made her seem like a conventional pop prospect. Instead, however, she slipped sideways, into the world of SOPHIE, A. G. Cook, PC Music and the thrilling plastic wreckage of future-pop.

Her major label debut was True Romance in 2013. As the visuals on the albums became more risqu, through Charli (2019) and How Im Feeling Now (2020), sales actually dropped. Sucker, released in 2014, was the biggest of her first five releases (mixtape included), reaching No.15 in the UK and No.28 in the US.

With her sixth album Crash (2022), Charli made a bold move for Pops centre stage. For an artist long adored for refusing the obvious it was a dazzling act of self-reinvention. Crash became her breakthrough album, reaching No.1 in the UK, Ireland and Australia and No.7 in the US.

And then cameBrat, which peaked at No.2 in Canada and No.3 in the US, as well as hitting that triple No.1 again going on to become a zeitgeist-defining record.

That Mad Brat Summer

Where Crash gleamed with the bright surfaces of professional Pop, Brat returned to the heady underground as a site of friction, replete with serrated synths, acid squelch, metallic percussion and cavernous bass. With George Daniel, A. G. Cook, Easyfun, Hudson Mohawke and Gesaffelstein among the co-conspirators, Charli folded her own dance-music history into the record: an Aphex Twin fascination, Bloghouse adolescence, PC Music extremity, a lifelong belief that trash, handled correctly, can fuel a sublime sound.

Her early bedroom demos were lo-fi, minimalist, club tracks that possessed humour with high and low themes interlaced. It took her a while to find her tribe, before she met SOPHIE, Hannah Diamond and A.G. Cook people who understood her. She made Vroom Vroom with that trio, a schizoid song of sugary chorus and hard verse production. To hear it now is to hear Brat in embryo.

Brat arrived in a lurid green glare, stripped of glamour and yet instantly iconic for its crude typography, hard club minimalism and confessional lyrics.

Bratslipped into politics, quite literally, when Charlis tweet kamala IS brat detonated across the 2024 U.S. election cycle and the Harris campaign briefly absorbed its visual language. Suddenly, Charli was no longer simply releasing music; she was watching her private grammar become public property. Brands, politicians, fans, fashion people, critics and opportunists all rushed the room.Bratproved that Pop could still create a moment, even as the culture now devours moments almost as soon as they appear.

Music, Fashion, Film.

Charli has described her records as part of an ongoing argument with herself - each album answering, correcting or resisting the one before it.

By that logic, Music, Fashion, Film is not a continuation of Brat, but a counterweight. If Brat was blunt, conversational and born of the internets nervous system, the new record seems to be something more deliberate: an attempt to examine her changed life, and the strange aftershock of becoming one of the biggest stars on the planet.

There is, at the time of writing, no interview, no advance album stream, no sanctioned tour through the machinery. To date we have three singles: Rock Music, SS26 and Wink Wink. Oh, and one of the years most arresting album sleeves: a stark black-and-white photograph of Cale, Jacobs and Scorsese in a bare kitchen, three black-clad cultural titans gathered around an ashtray and a bruised table.

Easter egg culture is Pops new detective fiction. Charli xcxs audience has been trained to read her work as a system of clues. A video can point backwards to an old era, a costume can become evidence, and a joke can harden into mythology.

Sure, the music is the centre, but never the whole object. Meaning is not delivered cleanly from artist to audience; it ricochets between platforms, eras, collaborators and fandom until the album becomes less a fixed object than a live network of signals.

Speaking recently on Bella Freuds interview seriesFashion Neurosis, she described a creative process governed less by grand design than by instinct, accident and momentum a way of working in which the wrong turn or the unplanned collision can become the thing that unlocks the work.

Why Cale, Jacobs, Scorsese?

What is the sleeve all about? John Cale, Marc Jacobs and Martin Scorsese are obviously totemic representations of Music, Fashion and Film. So what is Charli telling us? Why choose those three? And where is Charli herself?

In the wake of Brat, Charli floated the idea of making what she called a Lou Reed record. On the Fashion Neurosis Podcast, she spoke about collaborating with Velvet Undergrounds John Cale on House, a song on the soundtrack of Emerald Fennells Wuthering Heights released earlier this year. And about the Todd Haynes documentary The Velvet Underground, in which Cale said that he wanted his string arrangements to sound both elegant and brutal.

That was why she reached out to him. Elegant and brutal.

Charli does not claim an encyclopaedic knowledge of music. She simply digs The Velvet Underground and by extension Andy Warhol and The Factory scene and its wild assortment of otherworldly characters, Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling and Bridget Polk among them, along with their splendidly alluring hangouts, places like Maxs Kansas City and Studio 54.

As a young, isolated artist, Charli craved the sense of camaraderie and collaboration that seemed to exist in that Warholian movement.

As a fashion designer, Marc Jacobs has repeatedly drawn on that Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, downtown Manhattan world that Lou Reed helped define. As it happens, Jacobs was also the first designer who chose Charli to do a campaign. But the singer is fascinated by what happens when artists do not stand alone but cross-contaminate.

Martin Scorsese first encountered Lou Reed while finishing Raging Bull in Los Angeles and invited him to watch the Final Cut a telling gesture from one New York obsessive to another. Over the years, their acquaintance deepened. But their real affinity was imaginative. Scorsese recognised in Lou a fellow cartographer of the Big Apples lower frequencies. Lou wrote songs like overheard scenes. Scorsese made films that often seemed to move with the nervous rhythm of a Lou Reed lyric.

Set against that background, Charlis connection with Scorsese feels less like celebrity networking than a kind of conceptual theatre: a young pop auteur inviting one of cinemas great image-makers into her own frame. For a moment, the director becomes the directed, absorbed into Charlis system of signs, references and cultural power plays.

The image was shot in New York at the end of April by Charlis regular collaborator Aidan Zamiri, who is also the director of The Moment the mockumentary in which she stars as herself, and which satirises the whole Brat phenomenon.

There is a sense, inevitably, that Charli brought the three men together simply because, afterBrat, she could. Charli has admitted she found it hard to believe that she had managed to assemble Cale, Jacobs and Scorsese in the one room and pull off an image so absurdly simple, so loaded, so perfectly strange and so right for the record.

Destination Unknown

Speaking recently on Nikki at Night, Charli acknowledged another consequence of Brat. There is a strange split between the long-serving Angels the fans who came up through the mixtapes, PC Music, Pop 2 and the years when she was Pops best-kept secret and the newer Brats, who arrived when the green square swallowed the summer of 2024.

Charli had initially resisted the usual pop-star business of christening her followers. But she changed course after seeing an image that placed her face on a Charlies Angels poster. In 2014, she wrote, with typical informality - if u want to you can be my Angels. What might have been a throwaway line stuck. In 2017, she released Number 1 Angel, a mixtape that was the perfect bridge between Sucker (2014) and Charli (2019).

Music, Fashion, Film seems almost designed to test both the loyalists and the newbies. It is unlikely, one hazards, to generate the ardour or excitement of Brat. But thats okay. Charli xcx doesnt need that particular fix again.

As ever, she is on her way somewhere else. Just dont try to tell her where the destination is. Shell know it when she gets there. And so, I suspect, will we.

It was launched in partnership with the Kilkenny Nighttime Economy, which aims to host a vibrant and safe nightlife and arts scene in Kilkenny.

The festival took place on Friday July 17 and Saturday July 18 and had over 2,000 attendees. The lineup included English punk band Public Image Ltd., Northern Irish trio Ash, alternative metal band Kerbdog, folk singer Lisa O'Neill and Engine Alley.

Matt Berninger from The National performed on Saturday and it was his only Irish solo show this year.

The festival was organised over the course of two years by Kilkenny natives Willie Byrne and Darragh Butler.

"To have artists of the international standing of Public Image Ltd., Matt Berninger, Ash and Lisa ONeill sharing a stage with our very own Kilkenny success stories Kerbdog and Engine Alley felt incredibly special," they said in a joint statement following the event. "We're very proud of what Live at Castle Mills became, and even prouder that we got to share this special place and an incredible line-up over two nights with so many people."

Butler told KCLR 96FM that a collective of music fans used to go to the venue during Covid-19, where they drew inspiration to start a festival there.

"During the COVID area, we used to kind of sneak down here for a few refreshments," he said. Every time we came down to the venue, we just thought this place is stunning. And, what a place for a gig. We want to have a gig here. So, yeah, weve been tipping away for two years, building it behind the scenes."

 

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The Sheffield band announced the details of the new film last month, alongside the announcement of their upcoming album, Live!, which is set for release August 28.

It follows Pulps extraordinary journey from obscurity to cultural touchstone, according to an official synopsis. The film, narrated by frontman Jarvis Cocker, includes footage from their biggest arena show with four decades-worth of archival material.

The film was directed by Garth Jennings, who also led the music videos for Pulp songs, Help the Aged and A Little Soul.

After its September 18 debut, What Do You Do For An Encore? will hit Canadian cinemas on September 23 and US cinemas on September 24. It will then be released on MUBI later this year.

In March, they released a three-track EP, The Man Comes Around featuring a cover of Johnny Cashs song of the same name.

The band are also set to perform at All Together Now on July 30.

Watch the trailer for What Do You Do For An Encore? below.

Working at Newstalk since 2011, Kieran presented their current affairs programme The Hard Shoulder along with his TV gig on Virgin Medias The Tonight Show. With plenty of broadcasting experience under his belt, what surprised him most about his new role at Liveline?

I started in November and I dont think weve gotten to the end of the show where we followed the plan once in all of that time! It goes into completely unexpected directions every single day, he explains. Usually its the strength of an individual caller who gets in touch and has got this incredible story to tell. They take over the show, or they bring something up, and the phone lines just light up, because it resonates with people and thats all they want to talk about. Then everything else falls by the wayside.

It brings great energy to the show every day, its so unpredictable! Its great to work on, because you dont end up doing the paint by numbers thing. Theres an element of chaos every day.

With years of experience of putting politicians through their paces, Kieran explains why talking to members of the public is slightly more nuanced.

You have to give people the oxygen and the room to express their opinion, and to talk about what theyve gotten in touch about, and what youve asked them to talk about, he says. Its not about treating them with more respect, because you do treat the politicians with respect. Its just that when people have power, theres an element of accountability that comes with it.

That means that you have to maybe be more forceful with them (politicians), and a slightly lighter touch with callers. Its not that callers go unchallenged, because you would challenge their views, but maybe in a more inquisitive way than a judgemental way.

Credit: Marc O'Sullivan

Kieran is an astute broadcaster and a natural when it comes to getting the best answers out of his interviewees. Is there any Irish legend, dead or alive, who hed love to interview?

Well, Im fascinated by history, so there would be too long a list of people from the past who Id love to interview, he replies. Going all the way back to Diarmait Mac Murchada, Strongbow, and everyone like that. So Ill stick to people who are alive! Id like to do an exit interview with Michael D. to find out how he got on.

Id also love to interview Nikita Hand. Theres a book coming out in the autumn, I think,Not The Perfect Victim its a brilliant title. Id love to interview her. Richard Boyd Barrett is brilliant when talking about James Joyce. Hes a realUlyssesnut. Hes got such an interesting take on it. So, you kind of want people like that.

EXTRAORDINARY STORIES

The people Id love to interview are just ordinary people with extraordinary stories. People who have gone through something, good or bad. Or somebody famous, but theyre talking about something completely unexpected as opposed to something like, What does it feel like to be an Oscar winner?

Although Kieran is a very proud Kilkenny man, he has a soft spot for Cork, having studied law in UCC.

Cork is a great city, which Im not shy about telling you, he enthuses. The best club night in Cork when we were there was the Freakscene on a Wednesday night up in The Savoy. It was absolutely class electronic music, and huge screens up everywhere, and just random shit It was brilliant, a really good night. Then wed go to Hillbillys for some chicken afterwards, of course!

Following his studies at UCC, Kieran moved away to Vancouver, Canada. While he was there, he and his friend Damien took it upon themselves to cycle from the city to Mexico.

We raised money for The Susie Long Hospice Fund in Kilkenny, he recalls. We raised a few grand, but mainly we just did it because we wanted to. It took a month. Thirty days of cycling and we took two days off. Thirty days of cycling is about 300km a day. It was savage, Id do it again in the morning.

Kieran still loves to head out on his bike in Ireland.

I got engaged on the Achill Greenway, so I have a soft spot for that place, he admits. The Waterford Greenway, especially Kilmacthomas towards Dungarvan is amazing, really nice. Theres the new South-East Greenway, which is lovely as well, along the end of the Barrow, down towards Waterford. Ive never done the Ring of Kerry or any of that, but Ive done the Wicklow Mountains, which are lovely. Were lucky with so many nice routes.

Talking to Kieran, you immediately know hes a very switched on, energetic person and sharp as a tack. In that sense, it comes as no real surprise that a duvet day is his idea of hell.

Okay, so Im off today and I have my list of things to do, starting with cleaning my young lad Sams room at 9am, and ending with his hurling training at 7pm. And then after that, I have to walk the dog. I actually said this to my wife this morning, and she just rolled her eyes and said, Youre such a loser. (Laughs)

I have a schedule for my day off. I hate on a day off to be like, Sure, well see where the day takes us. I want to know, I want a plan of what were doing for the day from the moment we wake up!

Speaking of itineraries, I sheepishly admit to Kieran that Ive never been to Kilkenny and ask for his top spots for a weekend away in his hometown.

Kilkenny Castle

There are loads of lovely things to do, he says. Theres the Butler Gallery, which is an amazing space. Kilkenny Castle, the castle park, and the canal walk are all brilliant. Theres great cafs around there as well, like Wild Tails down in Canal Square.

If you want to go for a longer walk, theres a bus service that will drop you down at Bennettsbridge, which is about 7-8km outside Kilkenny, and you can walk the whole way along the river, all the way back into town from there. Its absolutely beautiful, theres no people, no houses, no traffic.

Youre just completely on your own in nature.Its a proper trail, theres no maintained path. Its an old river bank, so youre passing old mills and the ruins of them along the river. Gorgeous!

INFECTIOUS ENTHUSIASM

Kierans enthusiasm for his hometown is infectious.

When youre back in town, go over to the Kilkenny Design Centre, where they have beautiful art and sculpture exhibitions, he continues. Theres different craft courses and classes you can do. Goldsmiths and silversmiths work out of those buildings as well, so you may see them doing their work.

From there, you can make your way down to the Medieval Mile in town. Youve got the Shee Almshouse, St. Marys Cathedral, Rothe House & Garden, Graces Castle, and then at the far end of it, youve got St Canices Cathedral and the round tower. Theres brilliant walking tours of all of that around town. Its amazing history, not just Kilkenny, but a lot of the South-East medieval history, Norman conquest onwards to slightly post-reformation.

Theres also great night-life. Go for drinks in John Cleeres or Tynans and then go out for dinner. Theres any number of places you could go! Rive Gauche is always nice, Zuni is beautiful. Youve got Campagne as well, which is Michelin star if thats what youre into. Langtons obviously, who have all the different options.

Langtons

Now I have the lowdown on Kilkenny, does Kieran have any favourite family staycation spots?

Yesterday, we went down to the National Heritage Park, outside of Wexford, which was really cool, he enthuses. My kids thought it was absolutely brilliant. Its a great little place. The way you say you wouldve gone all the way up the West Coast, my kids have never been West of Shannon in their life!

We would always go the other way in Wexford, down towards the Hook Peninsula to Duncannon, Dollar Bay Beach, Fethard On Sea, Baginbun Beach all these places around Hook Head. So West Wexford was always somewhere wed go, we still go! Its only about an hour and five minutes away. You really cant go much farther than that if its a day trip, otherwise its too much. Its ideal!

Kieran has two children, Sam and Grace, with his wife Natasha. What does he love most about raising his kids in Ireland?

The sense of community that you get, he says. Its the fact they know theyre safe and that they can call into the neighbours, and there are other people around who will look out for them and keep them safe. I like that sense of community. Its like Yeats "my country is Kiltartan Cross", you know what I mean? We have a real keen sense of where were from and that those are our people. And I love that, I love raising my kids in that environment too.

Kierans love for Kilkenny is undeniable, so its clear to see why he decided to build his forever home there with his family and commute to Dublin for work.

My commute up is kind of work, so Id either do a production call with the team, or Id flick between David McCullagh and what else is on the radio to see what theyre talking about, he says. Then maybe after 11am, I might flick on LBC and see what James OBrien is talking about at the start of his show. I think hes brilliant, the way he frames things. Thats a caller-led show as well but its very different to Liveline.

On the way down, its more to sort of switch off. I might listen to music, and I often let Spotify decide you know when they give you the Daily Mix? Although its completely skewed, because my kids pick most of the music! Id listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks in the car as well.

Podcasts like The Rest Is History, The Rest Is Entertainment, or Empire, that podcast is very good. Theres Second Captains. Id listen to any audiobook. The one Im listening to now is The Ratline by Philippe Sands about Nazis getting out of Western Ukraine at the end of the Second World War, trying to escape. So anything like that.

As you can probably tell, its all go, go, go for Kieran Cuddihy. Does he find it hard to switch off?

READING THE PAPERS

With a job like that, I dont think you ever really do, he reflects. I think anyone in this industry finds it hard. Like this week, Im off because the kids are off. But in the morning, my alarm goes off and the first thing I do is start reading all the newspapers, from front to back before I get out of bed, to see if theres anything we should be talking about in the show, even though Im not gonna be on the show.

On some level, you realise that whatever is happening this week you could be talking about next week, so you have to stay across it all. With Liveline, when you dont know where its gonna go, its good to try to stay informed about as many things as possible. You dont necessarily need to be an expert at anything, just know a little bit about lots of things.

Kieran is clearly someone whos naturally interested in people and things. You dont get into that line of work unless youre genuinely curious.

Definitely, you have to be interested in other people and their stories, he nods. I mean, you could fake it for a while like anyone could, but you wouldnt be able to keep it up. You know if youre ever out in a group and theres that person, you realise after like half an hour, that theyre just talking about themselves and they havent asked you anything about yourself? You cant be that person. People like that have no interest at all.

We all know people who talk at you, rather than to you!

Yeah, exactly! You have to be interested in other people, their take on the world, who they are, and what theyre going through.

Listen to Kieran Cuddihy on RT Radio 1sLiveline,Mon-Fri, 1:45-3pm.

Alongside the 11-track album, the band announced an EU Autumn tour, including a stop to Dublin's Opium Rooms on November 14. Their biggest headline show to date will be at London's Roundhouse on November 25, as part of their Somewhere Here tour.

The Leeds-based trio released their latest track 'Easy', featuring Brit-Award winner Celeste, on July 22.

"'Easy' came from one of our very first sessions with Celeste around eight years ago," the band said. "Theres a rawness and spontaneity to it that captures those early days of working together."

The song follows the instrumentalist's and producer's first single 'Some Birds Don't Fly', which featured Matt Maltese in May.

"Sometimes the hand you get is just a bad hand," Maltese said to CLASH.

"And the helplessness that brings for those around them is a difficult thing to accept. The notion of a bad hand in life made me think in turn of flightless birds."

Joining Matt Maltese and Celeste on Somewhere Betweenare Olive Jones, Pip Millet, Sofia & The Antoinettes, anaiis and Rosie Lowe.

Tickets for their Dublin show can be purchased here.

See the full track-list for Somewhere Between below:

1. Wake Me Up ft. Olive Jones
2. Flowers ft. Pip Millet
3. Nico's Theme
4. Some Birds Don't Fly ft. Matt Maltese
5. Shape of America ft. Sofia & The Antoinettes
6. Easy ft. Celeste
7. Lay Low
8. Below The Water ft. Rosie Lowe
9. Don't Give Up ft. anaiis
10. Slippy
11. Going home

Watch 'Easy' by Gotts Street Park featuring Celeste:

There were concerns highlighted by People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett, who attended the trial yesterday, of the "inhumane conditions," and that the defendants were "tried under laws and in a manner normally reserved for terrorists and organised criminals." This included allegations of food shortages, no recordings of the trials being kept and that the Irish Government had not sent an observer.

32-year-old Tatlow-Devally is a member of the Ulm 5, a group of pro-Palestine activists who are on trial in Stuttgart with the charge of a break-in at an Elbit Systems facility in the southwest of Germany.

The cross-party delegation are People Before ProfitSolidarity TDs Richard Boyd Barrett and Ruth Coppinger, Sinn Fin TD Mairad Farrell and MEP Lynn Boylan, Labour Party TD Duncan Smith, Fine Gael TD Barry Ward, and Social Democrats Senator Patricia Stephenson.

The politicians said there was no transcript of the recording of the trial and defendants were denied access to talk to their lawyers. The politicians, who were not permitted to take notes during the hearing, each raised concerns of the manner it was conducted in is a violation of EU human rights laws.

The Elbit Systems facility is a subsidary of Elbit Israel that that manufactures over 80% of weapons used by the Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza.

The Ulm 5 have been held in prison since the alleged break-in after a video was posted in September 2025 which showed the protesters damaging equipment and chanting 'Free Palestine.'

They are being tried under Section 129 of the German Criminal Code which considers them a 'criminal organisation' and German prosecutors accuse them of causing around 1 million worth of damages. If they are found guilty, they could face up to five years in prison.

TD Mairad Farrell, alongside Boyd Barrett, visited Tatlow-Devally in prison ahead of the trial. "The conditions we saw and those he spoke about were awful," Farrell said.

"Our demand is that the Irish Government sends observers to this court case in which there is an Irish citizen."

Boyd Barrett described the trial yesterday as a 'show trial' where the defendants did not receive justice.

Greta Thunberg attended and has been advocating the release of the Ulm 5. "The court exhausts us by dragging this trial on to next year, however we will consistently show up until the Ulm 5 are released and until Palestine is free," she said in an Instagram post on July 13.

"Today, in a courtroom beside the one where the Ulm 5 are being prosecuted, a group of violent fascists charged with attempted murder, who shot and wounded two people, were allowed to leave the courtroom during their trial," Boyd Barrett said in an Instagram post after the trial.

"Just a few metres away, five peace activists are being kept behind glass, denied access to their lawyers, and treated like terrorists for destroying weapons that would have been used to harm civilians, in an action where no one was ever harmed or threatened. The hypocrisy is beyond belief."

Greta Thunberg attended alongside the politicians.

 

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Also in an Instagram post, TD Ruth Coppinger said that when testimonies were requested to be read in defendants' own languages, "it had quickly become apparent that the translator was leaving out some details and not being fully accurate."

According to observations of the cross-party delegation, Tatlow-Devally is being held under a regime involving up to 23 hours in his prison cell a day and is allowed visitors for one hour per month.

"How this trial is being run is very different to what we would see in Ireland for example, the trial does not take place on consecutive days meaning the process is being long drawn out, all the while Daniel is kept in solitary confinement in prison," Labour TD Duncan Smith said. "This is despite the fact that Daniel and his colleagues are of no threat to people.

"This has all the hallmarks of a show trial. In the courtroom, Daniel and his colleagues are kept behind a glass screen, unable to sit beside and confer with their lawyers."

 

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Three nights of live Irish music, from September 2 to September 4, will be presented as part of the GATECRASHES series.

One Leg One Eye will open All The Dead Voices on Wednesday with a rare Dublin appearance. The group consists of Ian Lynch from Lankum and George Brennan, and released their second album CRONEin May, this year. The haunting psychedelic duo embrace rage and frustration through experimental drone music.

The music-theatre company Operating Theatre will be performing on Thursday. The group, made up of Composer Roger Doyle and performer Olwen Four, were active in two different phases, from 1981 to 1988 and from 1998 to 2008. They held a reunion concert in the National Concert Hall in 2025.

The last time the pair appeared together at the Gate Theatre was between 1988 and 1991, when they performed in the world premiere of the Oscar Wilde production Salom, directed by Steven Berkoff.

Lisa O'Neill will round out the acts on Friday. The Cavan-born artist returns to the Gate after a series of performances in the venue in January 2025. Known for her distinctive voice and heart-felt lyrics she has become an idol of contemporary folk music. The singer-songwriter will rejoin The Pogues and other special guests for further European dates, later this year, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Rum Sodomy & the Lash album.

See dates and times below:

Wednesday 2 Sept | 7.30pm: ONE LEG ONE EYE

Thursday 3 Sept | 7.30pm: OPERATING THEATRE

Friday 4 Sept | 7.30pm: LISA O'NEILL

Tickets went on sale Thursday, July 23 at 10 am and can be purchased here.

"We want you to tax us. We can afford it. Were not talking about higher taxes on those who get up and go to work for their income every day, but on the very richest whose income is derived from the wealth they hold," the letter said.

It urged a more equal society through a "devolution of wealth and power from the very richest."

Former footballer Gary Lineker, musician Brian Enoand Gary Stevenson among other UK millionaires, have signed the letter.

"Our fantastic country deserves all of us to get behind it. Im proud to stand with people across the UK who want to live in a more equal society," Lineker said.

"Paying your fair share is a basic British value, but so many ordinary people are already paying more than they can afford. Our richest people can do more and most want to. To live up to our national values our new government must raise taxes on extreme levels of wealth for a fairer, better, more hopeful Britain."

A few days before Burnham became Prime Minister, he spoke in an interview on Lineker's podcast Goalhanger, where he was asked about wealth tax.

He said he would not "shy away from that,"and that the UK government "are going to have to work quite hard to make sure, you know, we can pay our way.

"And at some point that might be having to ask for a little more. But, you know, those decisions are not for now. They're for another day."

Patriotic Millionaires say a 2% tax on wealth over 10 million could raise 24 billion a year for the UK.

"As we embrace this new road - please consider taxing us properly as our contribution to it," the letter concluded. "We love this country. Its time for a better Britain; its time for everyone here to feel Great Britain. Its time to tax us, the super rich."

This month's session will be held at the earlier time of 1pm, instead of the usual 7pm, following feedback received this spring, including through MCM's Behind The Curtain Survey, with the temporary change introduced to better suit attendees' summer schedules.

As always, those attending the MCM meet and greet set the agenda. Each informal meeting follows its own course while providing a platform to source core information about Minding Creative Minds and their initiatives.

This month's meet and greet will once again be hosted by Ann Marie Shields, MCM Director and Careers Manager with BIMM Dublin Creative Futures.

MCM is 100% free and confidential, providing such services as:

This will mark the bands thirteenth album, following Nothing Lasts Forever released in 2023, which made the Top 40 on the Official Albums Chart after its debut.

Those dare to dream sentiments are kind of ridiculous, lead singer Norman Blake explained of the albums title. I dont think the world works that way.

The Glasgow band was formed in 1989 by Blake, guitarist Raymond McGinley and bassist Gerard Love. Now known for their alternative power-pop sound, they released their first album, a grungy debut titled A Catholic Education, in 1990. They followed that with The King in 1991.

Teenage Fanclub reached critical acclaim with their other 1991 album Bandwagonesque, which peaked at No. 22 on the Official UK Albums Chart and single, What You Do to Me, reached the top 20 on the US Modern Rock chart.

In 2018, Gerard Love left the band, prompting an updated lineup featuring bassist Dave McGowan, drummer Francis Macdonald and keyboardist Euros Childs.

The release of Do Not Dare To Dream will be accompanied by a 35-show tour across Europe, with two shows in Ireland Belfast Empire Music Hall on November 16 and The Academy in Dublin on November 17.

Yeah, its been a while since we started doing this thing we do, but to us it feels like no time at all, said McGinley. In the place where we made the record people would have been singing thousands of years ago. Life is short, but music is eternal.

Tickets for the bands Dublin show are available here.

Wheeler, part of the Co. Down rock band Ash, will be playing five dates from October 7 to October 11.

Though this will be his first solo acoustic tour, the artist has played solo performances in the past in support of his albumLost Domainin 2014.

Ash, who formed in 1992, began as a three-piece with vocalist and guitarist Tim Wheeler, bassist Mark Hamilton and drummer Rick McMurray.

They released their debut full-length album 1977in 1996, named as an homage to the year Star Wars hit cinemas. Every single from the catchy album made its way into the Top 20 in the UK. The band recently celebrated the album's 30th anniversary with a tour around the UK.

Ash's most recent albumAd Astrawas released in October 2025.

Tickets for Wheelers acoustic shows can be purchased here.

See all the October tour dates below:

7th - Spirit Store, Dundalk
8th - Mike The Pies, Listowel
9th - Clearys, Newcastle West
10th - John Lees, Tullamore
11th - The Grand Social, Dublin

See the announcement below:

 

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Produced by Magna Studios and presented by Sony Music Vision, the film has been created by Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and directed by Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, the filmmaking duo behind Shut Up and Play the Hits and Meet Me in the Bathroom. It will open in select IMAX and cinemas on September 9 before streaming later this year on Disney+ internationally and on Hulu and Disney+ in the US.

The documentary follows Oasis' Live '25 reunion tour, capturing what has been described as one of the biggest musical events of 2025. Alongside rehearsal, backstage and onstage footage, the film features the first joint interviews with Liam and Noel Gallagher in more than 20 years.

The feature explores the band's enduring cultural legacy and the impact their music continues to have on audiences around the world, while documenting the emotional response to their return to the stage.

Featuring unprecedented access and previously unseen footage, the documentary is produced by Sam Bridger and Guy Heeley, with cinematography by Haris Zambarloukos (Belfast, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) and sound from Oscar-winning mixers James Mather (Top Gun: Maverick) and Tarn Willers (The Zone of Interest).

The Venice premiere comes after Oasis' hugely successful Live '25 reunion tour, which saw the band return to the stage for the first time since their split in 2009, performing sold-out shows across the UK, Ireland and beyond.

 

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Elsewhere, podcasts preach discipline, submission and high-value femininity as the path to fulfilment.

For young women online, the algorithm offers an endless stream of competing blueprints for womanhood. Be softer. Be quieter. Be desirable, but not too sexual. Ambitious, but never intimidating. Above all, have your life figured out.

Social media has always sold aspiration, but todays algorithms demand certainty. The women who perform certainty best are often rewarded with millions of followers. They know exactly how to organise a pantry, structure a morning routine or build the perfect relationship.

Confidence has become content. Complexity rarely goes viral. Then Charli xcx crashes the algorithm.

The question isnt whether she is a role model. Its why an artist who never wanted to be one resonates so deeply with young women at a moment when femininity feels more prescriptive than ever.

JEALOUSLY, VANITY, COMPETITIVENESS

Take Hannah Neeleman, better known online as Ballerina Farm. Once a talented ballerina studying at Juilliard, she is now the internets most recognisable trad-wife. Her videos depict a blissful domestic existence on a sprawling Utah farm where she prepares elaborate meals from scratch while raising eight children. The aesthetic is rustic, carefully curated: hand-churned butter beside luxury appliances, wholesome simplicity underwritten by extraordinary wealth.

Theres nothing inherently wrong with choosing domesticity. Nor should women be criticised for finding contentment in family life. Yet Ballerina Farm represents something larger than one womans lifestyle. Her content presents a version of femininity that is beautiful, aspirational and, for most people, almost entirely unattainable.

She isnt alone. Across social media, the rise of trad-wife content has coincided with the clean girl aesthetic, wellness culture and a renewed fascination with gender roles. At the same time, hyper-masculine influencers have built enormous audiences promoting rigid ideas about what men and women should be. These trends dont necessarily reflect how most young people think, but they shape the online environment in which they grow up.

The pressure isnt only political. Its intensely personal. Young women are increasingly expected to optimise every aspect of themselves. Their appearance. Their relationships. Their careers. Their routines. Even self-care has become another performance.

Against that backdrop, Brat felt still feels almost radical. Charlis sixth studio album isnt a declaration. It doesnt pretend to offer answers. Instead, it documents what it feels like to live with contradiction. Across the record, she swings between confidence and self-doubt, ambition and anxiety, euphoria and loneliness. The emotional whiplash isnt a flaw; its the point.

I Think About It All The Time is a muted struggle with the possibility of motherhood, capturing the uncomfortable tension between personal ambition and the expectation that women should eventually settle down. There are no neat conclusions, only uncertainties. Girl, So Confusing dissects the mixture of admiration, insecurity and rivalry that can exist between women, while Mean Girls plays with the stereotypes imposed on female behaviour.

Even I Might Say Something Stupid strips away the confidence, exposing someone terrified of saying the wrong thing despite living in the public eye. These arent traditionally likeable emotions, particularly for women. Jealousy, vanity, and competitiveness have long been treated as qualities to overcome rather than admit to.

INDIE SLEAZE REVIVAL

Charli doesnt frame them as virtues, but she refuses to pretend they dont exist. Rather than resolving those feelings into neat lessons, she lets them be. Thats a rarity in pop music, where vulnerability is so often packaged as a stepping stone to self-improvement.

Male musicians have long been allowed to be arrogant, self-destructive, and emotionally conflicted without those traits defining their entire public identity. For less are women afforded the same complexity.

For decades, female pop stars have been expected to embody something more than music. They have been role models, brand ambassadors, and symbols of aspiration. That pressure was particularly visible during the Disney Channel era, when young stars were marketed not just as entertainers but as wholesome examples for their audiences.

Selena Gomez, for example, wore a purity ring as a teenager, publicly pledging to remain abstinent until marriage. Her personal choices became part of her public image, reinforcing the idea that female pop stars were expected to project moral virtue as much as musical talent.

Charli belongs to a different lineage of pop stars entirely. She has never built her career around being inspirational or morally exemplary. If anything, shes built it on admitting to feelings that women have often been encouraged to suppress. In doing so, she hasnt rejected femininity so much as expanded it.

Thats also why Brat Summer became so much bigger than an album cycle. Yes, there was the unmistakable acid-green artwork. There were the micro-shorts, smudged eyeliner, and deliberately chaotic styling that echoed the indie sleaze revival and became visual shorthand for a much broader attitude. But reducing Brat to a fashion trend misses what made it resonate. The attitude mattered far more than the aesthetic.

Credit: Harley Weir

ACT OF DEFIANCE

Being brat wasnt about dressing badly or partying harder than everyone else. It was about rejecting the pressure to be endlessly polished. It celebrated women who could be ambitious, impulsive and occasionally selfish without immediately apologising for it. Strangely liberating for a generation exhausted by curation.

Whether Charli intended it or not, Brat became an antidote to internet perfectionism. It offered release from the prison of self-improvement. In an online culture increasingly obsessed with optimisation; she celebrated inconsistency.

That doesnt mean Charli represents the opposite extreme. She isnt asking young women to glorify chaos or reject responsibility. If anything, Brat succeeds because it acknowledges that womanhood is rarely coherent. You can crave success and still feel like an imposter. You can be confident one moment and deeply insecure the next. Those contradictions dont make women failures; they make them human.

In an online culture increasingly eager to tell young women exactly who they should become, Charlis greatest act of defiance may be insisting they dont have to become any one thing at all.

If previous generations looked to pop stars for answers, Charli offers something more valuable: permission not to have them.

He then holed up in a Hollywood trailer, spent the Covid years on a remote island in Washingtons Puget Sound, and sailed boats on the ocean. After scaling cathedral-scale rock faces, he eventually shored up in the Brooklyn folk scene.

Its the sort of backstory that would feel suspiciously over-mythologised if the music did not bear it out. Amens songs arrive with the weathered ease of old American records, but they are not museum pieces.

Theres something alive and unforced in them a mix of Gulf Coast childhood, mountain air, bluegrass discipline, Gram Parsons warmth and a zealous searching spirit.

After releasing an EP The Zorthian Tapes and a handful of singles, Amen has already found himself on heavyweight festival bills, including Pitchfork London, Newport Folk Festival and Austin City Limits.

Newly signed to ATO Records, he now releases his debut album,Sun Of Amen.

Recorded partly at the legendary Valentine Recording Studios in Los Angeles, it draws on classic songwriting traditions without lapsing into cosplay or nostalgia. There are echoes of Elton Johns melodic sweep, Neil Youngs wide-open melancholy, John Denvers open sky wonder, Gordon Lightfoots narrative grace and Randy Newmans literate songcraft.

But Amens voice tender, watchful and quietly commanding belongs to his own remarkable map. Indeed, when I ask if he was brought up listening to such influences, he grins widely.

My parents had an appreciation for older music and some good music, he replies. But they werent like some of the kids that Ive now met, whose parents had Bob Marley, Bob Dylan and Bob Weir all the Bobs on their wall.

Initially, when Alex left Texas, he moved to California to study film.

I went to do a documentary about high adventure climbing stuff, he explains. Id seen a lot of the Sender films and the Jimmy Chin stuff, and documentaries likeMountain Of StormsandEndless Summer, whichhave beautiful cinematography paired with humans doing something interesting.

It was like, well, If I have to go to school, maybe I can graduate, live in an old truck and climb. I didnt last in it, because I didnt care as much about making films at that point in my life as I did about making music.

Playing piano since he was a kid, Alex started playing guitar in high school.

I was really into Nirvana, he recalls. I loved Mac DeMarco, The Shins, Fleet Foxes, Father John Misty and a lot of those Sub Pop bands. I also really liked Neil Young. Something that was really influential was just watching music documentaries. I remember watching one about 1970s music.

CRAZY HORSE

I dived into that stuff. I just wanted to educate myself. The Flaming Lips what are they picking up on? Or Mac DeMarco, it turns out his solos are like Grateful Dead. Its like, Oh, thats so Jerry!

Alexs first band, American Slang, were a gang of psychedelic folk-rockers who, judging by the sleeve of their self-titled debut, had clearly spent time at the altar of Crazy Horse. Though the record itself carries more than a whiff of early Creedence.

Sure, he agrees. I love that music, but it wasnt really until I moved to California that I started to listen to CCR albums.Green River, its just so raunchy, youre like, Oh, this is sick!. Or like Van Morrison, I grew up with Brown Eyed Girl at swim receptions. Then you get older, smoke a joint, listen to TB Sheets, and youre like, Oh yeah, I get it! So its a long process of discovery.

The self-produced production onSun Of Amenis exquisite.

It was done at Valentine Recording Studios in Los Angeles, Alex explains, and also at a studio in Long Beach called Jazz Cat Studios. The guy who engineered it, Johnny Bell, is great. I started recordingAmerican Slangat Valentine when I was 18.

But the record that came out was actually recorded at my grandparents ranch in Texas, because Covid shut everything down and we had to stop recording at Valentine. The entire studio at Valentine is from the late 1940s through the 1970s, and nothings been changed.

Sun Of Amenfeels like the record where everything Alex has lived through finally comes pouring into the songs. Was he, in some sense, on that great old troubadours search for a lost America?

Where I grew up in Texas was very consistent, he replies. As a kid, I was really attracted to stories in films and books that were about the opposite of mundane. I think the experience of going to California, and then finding my way to Washington, its like your inner desire creates your reality. I just wanted to experience the full depth of life. Through that, you meet people who are like-minded, and then life has a way of pulling you in these crazy directions.

For all the ready-made romance of Alexs backstory, he is pleasingly immune to his own mythology. When I ask what life in a California commune was actually like, he smiles and offers the least psychedelic answer imaginable: Why are there so many goddamn dishes in the sink?

When I ask about his time spent living in isolation on Vashon, an island in Washingtons Puget Sound, he says, I have a song on my EP called And Her Colors, which would probably say what its like better than I could. Its hard to put language on what its like to live in rural Washington. Like David LynchsTwin Peaks, theres a darkness and the supernatural; theres also an intense beauty thats very much seasonal.

NIRVANA LYRIC

Its like the Nirvana lyric Weather changes moods.Its true it rains, but you also get these intense periods of beauty and sun. Theres an old guy that I knew up there, and he said, Living in the Pacific Northwest is like being in love with a beautiful person whos always sick

Theres a strange trickSun Of Amenpulls off if you found it buried in a crate, and someone told you it came from that Randy Newman/Elton John golden age of songwriting, you might believe them. It never feels like pastiche or nostalgia, but it definitely does sound Californian.

This record, explains Amen, is in a certain sonic space. Like, its really hard to make a soul record sound like a Motown record. You could play all of the same notes, but theres some magic thats really hard to get. The same exists for California country and folk music.

Its hard to put the finger on exactly that California sound is, but it definitely exists. If you listen to The Burrito Brothers, The Mamas & the Papas or Merle Haggard, theres something there thatsinteresting. Maybe its the certain type of glyphosate they spray on all the fruit in California nowadays I dont really know what it is.

Sun Of Amenis out now.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, the punk icon said he has not forgiven his former Sex Pistols bandmates for a legal battle with him over the use of the band's music in Danny Boyle's FX miniseries, Pistol, while his wife, Nora Forster, battled Alzheimers disease.

The 2021 court case saw the Sex Pistols' Steve Jones and Paul Cook suing Lydon in order to override his veto on the use of the band's music. Lydon lost the case, allowing the show to go ahead when it was released in 2022.

Ill never forgive them for the way that they piled that court case on me while my wife was dying of Alzheimers, said Lydon. It was a most unfortunate act on their part, and then using Disney to strip-mine me If I didnt raise, say, $10 million after the first week, the case couldnt go on. Thats money I could have spent taking care of my lovely Nora. They knew she was ill.

Forster passed away in April of 2023 at the age of 80, following a multi-year long battle with Alzheimers.

When asked to give a number between 0 and 100 as to the likelihood of him ever performing with the Sex Pistols again, he said Its in the minus infinities. The dirt that they unloaded on me in a time where I was in real serious grief No I cannot forget about that.

He went on to say that his former bandmates never reached out to him while knowing Forster was ill, also mentioning that he believed his former bandmates deliberately withheld anything about the mini-series.

I dont hang out with low-renters, he said.

This is the latest news from a long-running feud between Lydon and the Sex Pistols. After their 2024-2025 reunion without him, Lydon publicly criticized his former band, saying the lineup was karaoke and a clowns circus.

Both Lydon, with Public Image Ltd, and the Sex Pistols have upcoming North American tours beginning in September.

The newly released stills reunite viewers with Constables Grace Ellis (Sin Brooke), Annie Conlon (Katherine Devlin), Tommy Foster (Nathan Braniff) and Acting Sergeant Stevie Neil (Martin McCann), as they continue policing the streets of Belfast three years into their careers.

Series four will see the officers face mounting pressure both on and off duty, while the ongoing murder trial of Gerry Cliff exposes a long-buried secret that threatens to unravel the police service and Belfast's criminal underworld, according to BBC.

The new series also marks the return of Richard Dormer as Gerry Cliff, despite the character's death in the show's first season. Hannah McClean reprises her role as solicitor Jen Robinson, while Jonathan Harden returns as former inspector David "Jonty" Johnson.

Created by Declan Lawn and Adam Patterson, Blue Lights premiered in 2023 and quickly became one of the BBC's biggest drama successes, earning widespread critical acclaim for its portrayal of frontline policing in Northern Ireland. The series has since won the BAFTA for Best Drama Series and the Broadcast Award for Best Drama Series or Serial.

 

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