XENO & OAKLANDER (NYC)

w/ Guests

MAGIC POCKETS

+ VERY SPECIAL GUESTS TBA

Saturday 1st June

Doors 7.30 / €10 / BYOB

The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7

Facebook Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/519249298136348/

XENO & OAKLANDER

http://xenoandoaklander.com/

Xeno & Oaklander

Miss Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride, aka Xeno and Oaklander, began performing at bars, clubs and private parties in 2004, functioning single-handedly along with Sean’s solo project Martial Canterel as the instigators of what has now become a new, rapidly growing movement of minimal electronic bands in the United States. Inspired by the likes of the largely unknown first wave of continental European minimal electronic bands of the early 80’s (Absolute Body Control, Twilight Ritual, Martin Dupont, Snowy Red), the seminal early industrial bands, as well as the emphemeral, psychedelic atmospheres of the British shoegaze bands of the 1990s, Xeno and Oaklander perform using entirely analogue synthesizers, sequencers, and drum machines to produce a highly-crafted, complex of form of moody, electronic pop music that is simultaneously romantically melancholic and affirmatively aggresive. Uptempo, cold, distant, echo-laden electronic landscapes provide a spacious, melancholic backdrop for Miss Liz’s complex ephemeral lyrical presence. Their entirely live approach to both performance and recording, unmediated by the computer or any prerecorded playback interference, presents a new optimistic radical paradigm shift for electronic music in which the analogue synthesizer functions entirely anew as a folk instrument of humanist resistance to a ‘soft synth’ world being ‘clicked and dragged’ into oblivion.

Interview: Xeno & Oaklander from All Our Noise on Vimeo.

MAGIC POCKETS

https://soundcloud.com/magicpockets

Magic Pockets

Magic Pockets is the solo synthesizer project of Ruadhan O’Meara (No Spill Blood).

His dark analog compositons draw upon the works of Tangerine Dream, Goblin, Ashra, Heldon, Frizzi, Schulze, Carpenter etc, combining the meditative absorbing qualities of Kosmische Musik with the stark tension of vintage horror soundtracks.

His debut LP “Volcano of the Bleeding Skies” will be released later this year.

As someone who is as influenced by Chaplin’s The Vagabond as they are poetry, and Francoise Hardy, Angel Olsen crafts each of her work with an intensity that is mesmerising.

A self-taught musician, her unusual voice that recalls the ghosts of musicians like Roy Orbison, remains a mystery to her, and consequently remains a mystery to us. Drenched in emotion, her voice flits and soars, accompanied by guitar, a beacon of beauteous otherness. Growing up, she listened to what her parents were listening to – artists like The Everly Brothers, but later was drawn to musicians like Lauryn Hill because of her vocal stylings and range.

Olsen’s own range is borne from an acute grasp of harmonic structure, a radiant individuality, and time spent singing in various coffee shops, punching the limits of her voice. This was challenged further when she met Will Oldham, and her contribution to his last record Wolfroy Goes to Town helped to elevate that work skyward, and perhaps helped Olsen to expand her own musical vision. Although that journey possibly began a few years ago, when Oldham asked her to join his unsettling “charged up punk” project “The Babblers” which at different turns required Olsen to shriek and scream down a microphone.

Her EP Strange Cacti (2011) and record Half Way Home (2012) contain moving, deep-wrought songs, full of often devastating language; devastating because the words resonate true, and because her voice shifts with each subtle break of emotion, the “tiniest seed” that “is both simple and wild”. Think of something like “Creator, Destroyer” and the lyrics: “And I never seem to notice/ It’s too late before I know that all the love inside has been empty/ The world we made has been ending/ And like a ghost that hangs around and won’t forgive its earthly sins/ I’ve carried on this love for you/ It’s how my body lives”. Perhaps it is Olsen’s poetic acknowledgment of the inherent sadness of life – “if only this song could carry us on, but I know I’m only entertaining myself” – that makes her so special, that understanding that what creates us, can also destroy – a “lonely universe”, Siobhán Kane talks to her.

Phil Lynott & Angel Olsen. Dublin, Ireland

I believe that Francoise Hardy is a real influence on you, how did you come upon her work?

I think a friend of mine made me a mix a while ago, and then I found a ton of footage of her and even tried learning the songs she sings. It’s difficult – and fun – to sing in other languages. For a while I spent a lot of time trying to learn the song “Bambino”, and somewhere around here there’s a copy of some other Italian songs. I’m terrible at it, but it’s fun to hear songs in other languages. There are new noises to make, and new feelings to express.

Half Way Home was an even deeper rendering of the atmosphere you created with Strange Cacti – did the response to Strange Cacti spur you on, and did your process differ?

I gave myself more time to think about the process when it came to recording Half Way Home. After Strange Cacti was released I had already made plans to do other things, to focus on other parts of my life. I feel like it was carelessly thrown together, and though-even that has its appeal to some people, I feel like some of those early songs could have been given a different kind of attention.

You worked with Emmett Kelly [of the Cairo Gang, Bonnie Prince Billy] who did a lot of the production for the album, he is such a tremendous, intuitive musician.

He is endlessly talented. I am forever grateful for the heart he put behind my songs. He released an album called The Corner Man just after Half Way Home was released, if you enjoy his efforts you should really check into his own music.

We saw you here with Will Oldham in Dublin last January. In an interview around that time he mentioned that he was completely humbled by your lyricless vocal on “Time to be Clear” from Wolfroy Goes to Town. He said you were all in one room, and it stopped him in his tracks, that he could feel the “spirit”, is that how it felt to you?

Well, I think by the time we recorded that song I had opened myself up in a lot of ways. Maybe that’s what he meant. I met Will through Emmett [Kelly], who asked if I’d be interested in joining for a cover band called “The Babblers” – featuring the album Babble by Kevin Koyne and Dagmar Krause. We continued to sing together after that project/tour ended. Will is extremely sharp and resourceful, and so naturally there was much for me to take in by working with him, and by just being around him.

One of your earliest concerts was in Chicago, with Marissa Nadler, who I admire very much. Is it true that you are working on some projects together?

Yes, I did perform with her at Ronny’s in Chicago, but we didn’t know each other very well until recently. We have recorded some lo-fi jams together. I’m not sure what we’ll do in the future.

Is music the most cathartic force for you? You write beautiful, deeply emotional songs – often deeply melancholy, and I wonder if perhaps it is your way of somehow saying “I have triumphed over this particular situation, and that it is a way of strengthening yourself?

In a way, when I write about anything I feel like I’ve triumphed over it-but feeling that way is really kind of misleading. Writing about something real doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got it all figured out, addressing something doesn’t mean you’ve conquered anything at all. It just means you’ve got yourself a little feeling with a melody to it. I sometimes get lost in it myself, for many songs…I couldn’t tell you who or what it exactly is about. I always feel like I’m pulling from a number of dreams or experiences. I’m not sure if it strengthens me, or makes me feel like I know more about anything, but I enjoy doing it.

The videos for your songs “Tiniest Seed” and “Sweet Dreams” are so evocative, how did you come to find the people you worked with on those videos?

They’re my friends! Randy [Sterling-Hunter] and Zia [Anger] approached me about making something before they both left Chicago. “Tiniest Seed” was talked over, and it was a continuation – at first – of a theme from the first film we did for “Tiniest Lights”. Where, instead of viewing this fluttering image-you see multiple moving images side by side. And “Sweet Dreams” was sort of improvisational.

You began on your own, and now work with a band – how has that transition been? It must feel quite exciting to hear your compositions so richly drawn out with all these other players and instruments.

I feel very blessed that I can make music with my friends. I am finally learning how to work within a group -and to allow my songs to change and morph. It’s very strange and new and exciting and I am so happy. I can’t even tell you how happy I am.

Chicago is your home now, you moved there some years ago from St. Louis, Missouri, what drew you there? Do you feel that you have made a home for yourself there? It’s a strange thing, isn’t it, where you actively decide to make somewhere “home”? People often just stay where they grew up, but it is so satisfying to actively search out answers, and landscapes.

I’ve always been someone who’s wanted to travel and explore and all of that. I really wouldn’t know much about the St.Louis music scene-I left before I could perform at most clubs or get too deeply involved in any circles. Chicago definitely has taken care of me, and shown me a world of trouble and happiness. I don’t know if I’ll live here forever-but performing here has been really wonderful..there’s always something happening. Even in the dead of winter.

Bathetic is a great label, and I sense that they are very nurturing, didn’t you recently do a label tour?

Well, I just finished a west coast tour along with Villages who is also a Bathetic artist. We had a blast! I also met many other Bathetic Artists during my November tour along the U.S. east coast. I am so grateful to the Bathetic family for allowing me to be a part of what they do.

What are you listening to, and reading?

I’ve been listening to Kris Kristofferson’s Please Don’t Tell Me How The Story Ends, and I have just started reading Land at the End of the World by Antonio Lobos Antunes, and recently started checking out Larry Fagin’s poetry.

In fact, this last tour has been circling around poets.  There’s a modern typewriter poet you should check out named Zach Houston, I met him at a punk rock house in Oakland. Maybe you’re into that sort of thing…

• More Info: Angel Olsen w/ Lisa O’Neill & Bill Blood, Whelans. Thurs 2nd May 2013
• BUY Tickets for the Dublin show here : www.skinnywolves.com/tickets/
• Facebook Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/137698426392389/

Siobhán Kane

Over the years, Siobhán Kane has written for various publications on music and culture including The Irish Times, Thumped, The Event Guide and Consequence of Sound. She occasionally contributes to radio, including the arts and culture show Arena on RTE1, and amidst trying to write her doctorate and teaching, runs the collective Young Hearts Run Free, putting on music, literature and arts events in unusual spaces, raising money for the Simon Community in the process.

Website URL: http://www.myspace.com/youngheartsrunfreeevents

HOLLY HERNDON (USA /RVNG Intl)

& Guests:

Catscars
Simon Bird

Friday 22nd March
Doors 8pm (early show)

Set times: SB : 815 – 845 / CS : 900 – 930 / HH : 945 – 1045

Tickets : http://www.bodytonicmusic.com/events/3701/
Facebook Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/538044372902368/

Twisted Pepper (basement venue)
Middle Abbey St, Dublin 1

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HOLLY HERNDON

• http://hollyherndon.tumblr.com/
• http://igetrvng.com/artists/holly-herndon/

“Holly Herndon’s debut collection of material hybridizes experimental and dance music into hardcoded human sensuality”

Movement, Holly Herndon’s debut album on RVNG Intl., is a test chamber that hybridizes her modern composition training and undying devotion to club music. To this extent, the influences of Maryanne Amacher and Galina Ustvolskaya are as prevalent in Herndon’s music as Pan Sonic and Berlin and Birmingham 90s techno. Still, in line with pop deconstructionists Laurie Anderson and Art of Noise, Movement is purposefully positioned to reach new ears beyond a niche.

————————

MOVEMENT LP:
Holly Herndon’s Movement is the debut offering of material by the young musician, modernist, and machinist.

Restless for reckless cultural immersion, Herndon left her Johnson City, Tennessee home as a teenager for Berlin, Germany. For several years, Herndon lived and learned techno music as party dweller and performer, eventually returning wide-minded to the States to pursue a Masters in Electronic Music at Mills College. Under the guidance of network pioneer John Bischoff, Roscoe Mitchell, and Maggi Payne, Herndon pursued her experiments with processed voice and explored embodiment in electronic music, earning the Elizabeth Mills Crothers award for best composer in 2011.

Started at the end of Herndon’s studies, Movement is a test chamber that hybridizes her modern composition training and undying devotion to club music. To this extent, the influences of Maryanne Amacher and Galina Ustvolskaya are as prevalent in Herndon’s music as Pan Sonic and Berlin and Birmingham 90s techno. Still, in line with pop deconstructionists Laurie Anderson and Art of Noise, Movement is purposefully positioned to reach new ears
beyond a niche.

Honoring a strong tradition of computer composition from Stockhausen to Florian Hecker, Herndon is unapologetic about using a machine as her primary instrument. She builds most of her own instruments and vocal effects in the visual programming language Max/MSP, and sees it as a principled part of her practice to push the most modern
processors to their limits.

“The laptop is the most intimate instrument we have at our disposal, engaging and absorbing our confessions and inspirations” says Herndon. “Its influence has both devastated and invigorated music as we know it. We’ve only just begun unlocking the possibilities at our fingertips. Those possibilities are what I work towards and against.”

Incorporating themes of presence and physicality / flux and futurity within said musical expressions and tool set, Movement translates the Avant-Garde into what Herndon fundamentally considers “life practice.” Movement opens with the malfunctioning hum and cyborg stutter of “Terminal.” “Breathe,” a minimalist articulation of data complexity within the human voice, informs the processing of Herndon’s own vocal melodies in the syncopated house track
“Fade.”

The collection’s centerpiece “Movement” is about human-computer symbiosis and musically re-imagines what is perceived as “natural” atop a vigilant acid grind. “Dilato” drifts the live baritone vocal stream of Bruce Rameker through a slight digital process to curious mortal frays.

Herndon’s ability to sharp turn from synthetic psychosis to hard-coded human sensuality allows Movement approachability for any listener knowingly or unknowingly seeking technological enlightenment. For those listeners escaping grid integration for holistic antiquity, keep a copy of Movement handy. You’ll need the manual for reconfiguration later.

CATSCARS

SIMON BIRD

DANIEL HIGGS (USA, Thrill Jockey / Dischord Records) & WOVEN SKULL

VENUE:
(Basement of) Molloy and Dowling Opticians
18b Kildare Street (Below Cleo Handweavers)
http://www.molloyanddowling.com/home/
Google Map : http://goo.gl/maps/ut5xr

Doors 8pm / BYOB / Tickets 8euro (for DOOR COLLECTION ONLY) from www.skinnywolves.com/tickets/

✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞✞

DANIEL HIGGS

• http://www.thrilljockey.com/thrill/Daniel-Higgs
• http://www.dischord.com/band/danielhiggs

Daniel Arcus Incus Ululat Higgs is a musician and artist from Baltimore, Maryland on whose behalf superlatives are destined to fail. It’s not that his artistic output – spanning three decades, numerous albums, books of poetry and collections of drawings – simply eludes classification, it defies it. Often we hear that a true work of art is meant to speak for itself, and with the work of Daniel Higgs the maxim rings truer than ever. His art is of the cosmos, we on Earth merely lucky that it happens to be confined to our atmosphere, in our lifetime.

Higgs is known primarily for his work as the sole lyricist and frontman of the band Lungfish, a four-piece dedicated to charting, in this listener’s estimation, nothing short of the evolution of all species, known and unknown. That the band has undertaken this pursuit in the guise of a humble rock outfit, in the absence of any public relations fanfare, metanarrative, or manifesto has been enough to endear them to tens of thousands. They are enshrined as one of America’s last true folk bands, and Higgs anointed as a patron saint to artistic purity.

In recent years, Higgs has released a number of solo outings that can only be described as the ultimate in isolation, worlds away from the hypnotic, communal rock of his band. On Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot, Higgs weaves meditative, casually ruptured drones using acoustic and electric guitar, upright pianos, banjo and jew’s harp, recorded entirely at home on cassette recorder. He pairs the music with a series of paintings that call to mind religious iconography passed through the disfiguring surrealism of Miro.

Higgs has wedded his music and his visual art into a singular being, meant to be encountered as a conjuring force similar to that of the tarot experience. The yggdrasil is the great tree of Norse myth that connects all worlds of cosmology. Passing into Christian folklore, the tree is said to connect heaven and earth. In his relentless pursuit of the indivisible, Higgs travels up and down this spine and hatches a new transubstantiation of sound and image into life-form.

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WOVEN SKULL

http://wovenskull.com/

Woven skull is the vessel with which the sound of larks, lakes and the high breeze off tree tops travels from its source to the comfortable confines of rigid amplification, battered drum

skins and rusty chimes into repetitive dark melodies.

Since 2008 the core trio that makes up Woven Skull have been
gathering together in the remote area in the north west of Ireland known as Leitrim. Known for its tales of ghosts, ‘tree folk’, under water creatures and the constant battle calls of the ancient Tuatha De Danann that can be heard on Letirims Iron Mountain. These are the surroundings and forces that influence the sound that Woven Skull create: A contrast of minimal drones, repetition and psychedelic distorted riffs all layered in constant unconscious rhythms.

As well as the 3 core members, Woven Skull often take other people with them when playing live or during recordings. Other ‘players’ have included members of United Bible Studies, Gnod, Core of the Coal Man, Raising Holy Sparks and more. When playing live the group incorporates visuals and creates an intimate setting with candles and dim lighting. They have a number of self-released CDs as well as a tape release (Moods of the Hill People) on Fort Evil Fruit (Dublin) and a release coming out on Golden Lab Records (Manchester).

ANGEL OLSEN (USA, Jagjaguwar Records)

& Guests : Lisa O’Neill & Bill Blood

Thursday 2nd May
The Joinery, Stoneybatter, Dublin
New VENUE: WHELANS, Wexford St, Dublin
Doors 7.30pm

Tickets available (FOR DOOR COLLECTION ONLY) again from : www.skinnywolves.com/tickets/

Facebook Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/137698426392389/

ANGEL OLSEN

• https://www.facebook.com/angelolsenmusic
• http://www.jagjaguwar.com/artist.php?name=olsenangel

If there is one thing that great musicians have in common, it is the compelling way they combine an admirable fearlessness with something vulnerable, something relatable and truly inviting. It’s a tricky cocktail to mix, but it unifies the great singers of virtually every genre, from the the most understated folk singers to the very glitziest pop stars. Angel Olsen is one such artist, and she joins the Jagjaguwar family armed with a voice that is remarkable, evocative and stark, comforting and startling.

Raised in St. Louis and now based in Chicago, Angel Olsen began singing as a young girl. She described to FADER, “when I reached a certain age, when I reached 15 or 16, I started to sound really different, and I don’t know where it came from or what exactly inspired it. I felt really comfortable singing loudly and letting my voice go all over the place…experimenting with volume and different types of music. Recording a lot, like when I was a little kid I would record on tapes a lot and listen to the recordings and harmonize with those recordings and then try and experiment with sounds, and then re-record over them. I feel like that’s the most natural process of teaching yourself anything. Listening and recording and listening and recording.”

• “Ms. Olsen understands the power of holding back, and feeding out extravagance in small portions. People stopped buying drinks; the bartenders put their elbows on the counter, engrossed. It was remarkable… Ms. Olsen has found her sound – her voice, alone and untreated and slow, conjoined with the specific resonance of her guitar – and she’s able to replicate a private discovery in front of a crowd. That’s a lot.”
• - The New York Times
• “[Olsen] has a way with language and melody that feels transcendent, the kind of songs that might float away if not anchored down correctly.”
  - Laura Snapes, Pitchfork
• “Angel’s music is special because of that which can never be duplicated or recreated. She is an individual and in the world of folk music, unseen gifts pack the most power.”
  - Zach Hart, We Listen For You
• “With this debut album, Angel Olsen cements a reputation as a skilled and soulful siren with heartstring-tugging songs.” -David Musto, Examiner
• “11 tracks of rough-hewn folk, shimmering and ribboned with dirt-packed veins, sung by a voice that curls and dips and dissolves like a black smoke plume.”
• - Pitchfork (2012 Albums of the Year: Honorable Mention)
• “It’s not just Angel Olsen’s range that makes her voice so unforgettable; it’s the surprise turns she’s learned to produce by manipulating it.”
• - The FADER
• “the work of a young artist with a vision – an engrossing listen.”
• - Chicago Tribune
• “WIth a voice that can be haunting, uplifting, fearful or strong, it seems there’s little emotion Angel Olsen can’t convey.”
• - WNYC

VIDEOS

Angel Olsen – Sweet Dreams (Official Video) from Randy Sterling Hunter on Vimeo.

Angel Olsen – Acrobat (Official Music Video) from Toshadeva Palani on Vimeo.

Angel Olsen – Tiniest Seed (Official Video) from Randy Sterling Hunter on Vimeo.

Belfast-based four-piece Girls Names are a singular proposition, both geographically and psychically removed from their contemporaries at home and abroad. Released on 18th February, their second album ‘The New Life’ is the sound of a band on the fringes striving to forge their own path, purposefully out of step – and time – with their surroundings. Weighed heavy with the grey landscapes of their hometown, ‘The New Life’ is isolation laid bare, shot through with an undeterred sense of purpose and individuality.

Having released a series of singles and EPs on various independent labels, Girls Names made their first significant impression on the wider world in 2011 with their debut album, ‘Dead To Me,’ earning plaudits from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and Loud & Quiet amongst a host of others. And yet, despite all the praise heaped on it, as soon as that record was released Girls Names were already moving into a different headspace.

The band’s performance at this year Primavera festival provided them with their first real opportunity to showcase the songs that were to comprise ‘The New Life.’ The sunshine backdrop of the Spanish coastline offered a somewhat incongruous setting to the eerie dissonance of the new material, a kind of trial by fire metamorphosis rapturously received. Following a tour of Europe, the band returned home to record the album over a series of months. Having been produced by singer and songwriter, Cathal Cully, they’ve managed to capture that sense of otherness the performances at Primavera hinted at. The expansion to a four piece means the garage-clatter of the spritely pop songs of their debut have been replaced by a deeper, shadowy exercise in catharsis, driven by repetition, psychedelia and Dionysian crisis. And the record was born of a weighty concept too, as Cully explains:

“’The New Life’ is not an over night change for Girls Names – just over two years in fact. ‘Dead to Me’ literally was dead to us by the time it was committed to wax. But it’s a learning curve. We started moving on as artists the moment we finished that recording session, maybe even before. Not to dwell on the past, ‘The New Life’ is what happens when you reset everything back to zero and start again, but try to perfect. It starts back at zero the minute the needle hits the groove but we’re also starting back from zero once the needle lifts at the end of the record. Ad infinitum. ‘The New Life’ is what follows now.”

The album’s title track, and the first single to be taken from the album, is an ideal entry point. Just shy of 8 minutes long, it rotates around a hypnotic bass line, and in Cully’s evocation of renaissance, offers a perfect metaphor for the album as a whole. New single ‘Hypnotic Regression’ – available to stream today – reflects another side to the record. The reverb-heavy guitars and compelling melody are immediately memorable, but there are signs of experimentation, too; the white squall of the lead break; the uneasiness in the vocal echoes that furnish the verses. As such, ‘The New Life,’ stands as a brave statement; the mark of the band untying themselves from the past and easing forth into the unknown.

GIRLS NAMES WEB: http://girlsnames-deadtome.tumblr.com/

PURCHASE  direct from the Labels here:

• UK/Europe : http://www.toughloverecords.bigcartel.com
• USA : http://www.slumberlandrecords.com/

Dublin LP Launch Party 

GIRLS NAMES
- ‘The New Life’ LP -
Dublin Release Party

W/ The LAST SOUND & GINNELS

The Grand Social, 35 Lower Liffey St, 1 Dublin, Ireland
Thursday 21st February
Doors 8pm

• Tickets 12e from www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves
• Facebook Event : https://www.facebook.com/events/192456984228248/

GIRLS NAMES : THE NEW LIFE

http://girlsnames-deadtome.tumblr.com/
https://www.facebook.com/GirlsNames

Girls Names – The New Life : LP Stream

Belfast-based four-piece Girls Names are a singular proposition, both geographically and psychically removed from their contemporaries at home and abroad. Released on 18th February, their second album ‘The New Life’ is the sound of a band on the fringes striving to forge their own path, purposefully out of step – and time – with their surroundings. Weighed heavy with the grey landscapes of their hometown, ‘The New Life’ is isolation laid bare, shot through with an undeterred sense of purpose and individuality.

Having released a series of singles and EPs on various independent labels, Girls Names made their first significant impression on the wider world in 2011 with their debut album, ‘Dead To Me,’ earning plaudits from the likes of Pitchfork, NME and Loud & Quiet amongst a host of others. And yet, despite all the praise heaped on it, as soon as that record was released Girls Names were already moving into a different headspace.

The band’s performance at this year Primavera festival provided them with their first real opportunity to showcase the songs that were to comprise ‘The New Life.’ The sunshine backdrop of the Spanish coastline offered a somewhat incongruous setting to the eerie dissonance of the new material, a kind of trial by fire metamorphosis rapturously received. Following a tour of Europe, the band returned home to record the album over a series of months. Having been produced by singer and songwriter, Cathal Cully, they’ve managed to capture that sense of otherness the performances at Primavera hinted at. The expansion to a four piece means the garage-clatter of the spritely pop songs of their debut have been replaced by a deeper, shadowy exercise in catharsis, driven by repetition, psychedelia and Dionysian crisis. And the record was born of a weighty concept too, as Cully explains:

“’The New Life’ is not an over night change for Girls Names – just over two years in fact. ‘Dead to Me’ literally was dead to us by the time it was committed to wax. But it’s a learning curve. We started moving on as artists the moment we finished that recording session, maybe even before. Not to dwell on the past, ‘The New Life’ is what happens when you reset everything back to zero and start again, but try to perfect. It starts back at zero the minute the needle hits the groove but we’re also starting back from zero once the needle lifts at the end of the record. Ad infinitum. ‘The New Life’ is what follows now.”

The album’s title track, and the first single to be taken from the album, is an ideal entry point. Just shy of 8 minutes long, it rotates around a hypnotic bass line, and in Cully’s evocation of renaissance, offers a perfect metaphor for the album as a whole. New single ‘Hypnotic Regression’ – available to stream today – reflects another side to the record. The reverb-heavy guitars and compelling melody are immediately memorable, but there are signs of experimentation, too; the white squall of the lead break; the uneasiness in the vocal echoes that furnish the verses. As such, ‘The New Life,’ stands as a brave statement; the mark of the band untying themselves from the past and easing forth into the unknown.

The LAST SOUND

http://www.thelastsound.com/

The Last Sound: Only the Lonely Know the Glow is Failing from Osaka Records on Vimeo.

The Last Sound is the project name of the Dubliner Barry Murphy.

Acquiring a computer, sequencer, and sampler as a teenager, Barry produced over 100 tracks across several genres and under many pseudonyms. Just three live performances were given during this period, each time under a different name and with up to six performers on stage, variously adding live drums, live synths, and dancers!

Though still based around sequencing, his musical style gradually shifted to a more organic, ethereal and psychedelic sound, and The Last Sound was born. He made his live debut in early 2002 as a machines/live drums one-off two-piece at the legendary Lazybird night in Dublin, by the year’s end the first album B’locks was released. Ever since, a sizable and diverse catalogue of output has been building up including four albums, three EPs and a slew of compilation tracks, remixes, live mp3s etc. spread across various labels both in Ireland and abroad.

Outside of The Last Sound, Barry has performed a number of times on stage as part of ex-Can vocalist Damo Suzuki’s never ending tour band, also appearing on his 2009 live album One More Universe. He is also one half of elusive psyche-drone merchants Whirling Hall Of Knives, formed in 2006 with Trensmat/Nute founder Magnetize. They have appeared on The Wire magazine’s influential Wire Tapper compilation series.

The Last Sound’s sonic identity is pitched somewhere between Kosmische, Shoegaze, Goth, Krautrock, and Prog! The two tracks on the 7″ ‘Only the Lonely know the glow is failing’ and ‘Turbochant’ are mini-masterpieces of scuzzy psyche dream-pop, hypnotic choruses are interspersed with brutal baselines and urgent drumming.

The 7″ also comes with x 2 remixes of both tracks, the1st by Australian Ollie Olsen who has contributed to many films soundtracks and the 2nd by techno/Drone producer Magnetize.

GINNELS

WEB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Ginnels/127206124018255

GINNELS

Ginnels – Crowns : Album Stream

Ginnels is a solo project by Grand Pocket Orchestra and No Monster Club guitarist/bassist Mark Chester, with live friends Paddy Hanna, Bobby Aherne, Roy Duffy and Ruan Van Vliet. It’s kind of like your favourite Byrds and Feelies records being drowned out by your dickhead neighbour’s stoned ‘noise jams’. Except actually good.

After releasing two acclaimed releases in 2011, the self titled album ‘Ginnels’ and the mini album ‘Mountbatten Class’ (Long Lost Records), Ginnels decided with infinite wisdom to record a 20-song, hour-long, double mess of an album called ‘Crowns’. Influenced by such sprawling records as ’69 Love Songs’ ‘Sandinista’ and ‘Bee Thousand’, with inspiration also taken from a secret love of hip hop mixtapes, He hopes that “it will baffle as much as it charms”.

‘Crowns’, like both his previous releases, was recorded and mixed entirely in his living room, built up from layers of guitars, vocals, “shit keyboards and other assorted detritus”. The author of the album also instructs that “if you listen carefully, you can also hear my downstairs neighbour’s horrendous banjo playing (uncredited) leaking up through the floor at inopportune moments.”

SHOW POSTER

It’s been an amazing year for deconstructed, f*cked-up and destroyed Techno, often emerging from the most unlikely sources. This new album from Yellow Swans’ Pete Swanson certainly falls into that category, but might just be the most shocking and exquisitely demented offering of its kind, sounding like a cross between Aphex Twin, Regis, Prurient and Kevin Drumm – with all the brilliance those names suggest. On these tracks he continues to mine beneath the topsoil of the American noise scene into a more delirious, deafening style of bunkered Techno sharing much in common with Prurient’s Vatican Shadow….

Skinny Wolves Presents :

PETE SWANSON
(USA. Type Records / Blackest Ever Black)
w/ LAKKER
+ SIMON BIRD

The Twisted Pepper
Thursday 10th January
Doors 8.00PM / €12 inc booking fee
www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves

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PETE SWANSON

Since upsetting the techno multiverse with ‘Man With Potential’ last year, ex-Yellow Swan Pete Swanson has tirelessly continued his exploration of the form, quickly breaking it down and moulding it in his image. ‘Pro Style’ is the result of those experiments, and finds Swanson at his most explosive, with his archetypal searing synthesizer blasts directed over warehouse kicks worthy of the Downwards catalogue. This is possibly Swanson’s most technoid investigation to date, but any ‘mainstream’ form is peppered with more than enough failure to put a smile on the faces of unconvinced Yellow Swans fans. ‘Pro Style’ is far from Berlin’s precise minimalism, instead taking a raw, hands on direction that we haven’t heard in the genre for many years. Whether you’re in the club or in the basement, Swanson’s pounding kicks and (surprisingly) booming basses should keep the apocalypse at bay, for now at least.

http://soundcloud.com/_type/sets/pete-swanson-pro-style
http://typerecords.com/artists/pete-swanson
http://vimeo.com/44840157

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LAKKER

Lakker are Dublin based musicians Dara Smith and Ian McDonnell (aka Eomac). Formed in 2001, they began writing electronic music in line with labels such as ‘Rephlex’ and ‘Warp’. Processed and chopped up electronica, noise, breakcore, techno and jungle gradually filtered into their own sound; a balance of organic sample-based productions and synthetic, processed electronic beats, creating a breadth of hauntingly beautiful melodies and foreboding techno which continues to receive support from Surgeon, Lucy, Phon.O & Aphex Twin. Their AV show (designed by Dara) marks their next stage of development, alongside 12″ releases and remix projects.

http://lakker.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/lakkermusic
https://soundcloud.com/lakker

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SIMON BIRD

Simon Bird is a 22 year old independent, Dublin based producer (originally from England’s South West). Between November 2010 and October 2011 he independently released 5 EPs. His fifth and most successful EP ‘V’ was also re-released in early 2012 in a limited run of 12″ Vinyl.

Over the last year since the release of ‘V’ he has been working on his first full length album, which is due to be released in the coming months.

http://simonbird.bandcamp.com/

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Skinny Wolves Presents :

A BLACK CHRISTMAS with…

GIRLS NAMES † TWINKRANES

w/ I AM THE COSMOS

GIRLS NAMES

SOMADRONE : ‘Pulse of Joy’ Single Launch

w/ Guests:
Spilly Walker / Sunken Foal / Simon Bird & late night DJs