The Underground of Happiness

I had the great pleasure to meet Julia Kent last month, having been a fan of her solo work for a few years. She was in Cork (and Dublin the following day) to play her first ever Irish show. Unfortunately, this occasion was marked by her cello being waylaid at the airport in Paris. Luckily the resourceful people at Fractured Air and Plugd (who co-promoted the Cork show) were able to locate a replacement instrument in Cork (her own cello was re-routed to Dublin and she got it back the next day). When I arrived at the venue, Julia was getting acquainted with this unfamiliar cello and understandably a little bit put off by the turn of events. Despite the hitch, she was very gracious with her time and we spoke in the Triskel Arts Centre foyer as the sizeable crowd gathered for the show. One of the most interesting things about the chat for me was her description of her classical music studies as "traumatic...super competitive", something she fled from to New York. There, ...

I had the pleasure a few weeks ago of seeing SlowPlaceLikeHome play live, when they appeared at the TDC space of Triskel Arts Centre in Cork as part of a kind of fringe to Cork Film Festival . They've only played a handful of times live but you'd think they'd been at it for years, such was the confidence and poise of the sound. I also interviewed Keith Mannion (the main brains behind SPLH) in advance of that gig for WeAreNoise , to ask him about the upcoming debut album, Romola , his recording process and some other stuff. It was particularly interesting to hear his thoughts on how sounds take shape and suggest themselves into something enduring. Here's an excerpt. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2013/11/slowplacelikehome-qa/ After your three EP’s last year, Coastal hubs for chivalry, Post-hoc and There go the lights again , will the album consist of new material? Totally new material. I think I have gone through a dozen different drafts of the n...

You'll be aware that Record Store Day 2012 happened last Saturday, April 21st. To mark the day, I participated in a special outside broadcast with my UCC 98.3FM station colleague Stephen Purcell at Plugd Records in Cork. That's the one independent record retailer in Cork city, one of only a handful in the whole country. And Plugd are also just now celebrating the 1st anniversary of their move to the current premises, at Triskel Arts Centre on Tobin St. Steve and myself were just two of a number of different DJ's playing in the shop throughout the day. Here are a few words I put together about the day in Plugd for We Are Noise - it was a most heartwarming event, I must say. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/04/record-store-day-at-plugd-records-apr-21-2012/ You can also check back on the ob with this podcast - it's mostly made up of music, not too much talking, the likes of The Kinks, Tangerine Dream, Paul McCartney and Bouts from Steve; I had some Peaki...

I paid my first visit to the recently re-opened Triskel Arts Centre over the weekend. They've incorporated several changes as part of the renovations, including restoring the 18th century Christchurch next door and turning it into a performance venue under the auspices of Triskel. You'd have to see the place to do it proper justice but the next best thing is to take a look at the picture gallery here . It's a stunning development, worthy of any major European city. Only last night, they hosted Hauschka playing a live soundtrack to Dreyer's silent classic Vampyr - I couldn't make it but you can read a review here - which is pretty damn impressive in anyone's book. There's a raft of other exciting events in the coming months, check em out. Another of the new elements in Triskel is the re-located Plugd Records , a perfect fit with the underground spirit of Triskel's history really (they're also running the Gulpd Café downstairs, purveyors of damn f...

So we had The Underground of Happiness screening of the Efterklang movie, An island , directed by Vincent Moon . (Sorry if you missed it, but not to worry, read on. Anyway, it was very limited capacity, restricted to the number of people that can fit on my couch, basically - what a select bunch... Check out the website for all the screening details further down the page, and see if you can spot our photo in the gallery here - flickr.com/photos/anisland) It was very enjoyable. As with all music films, it stands on the quality of the music itself, which of course is very good in this case. My 8-year old wondered about the narrative interludes ("Why are they walking in the forest?") but she found plenty of interest in the musical performances. Even the toughest critic in the room (my wife) was won over. I think my own favourite bit was the accompanying children's orchestra during the school sequence, and in particular the "newspaper section" (kids holding newsp...