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April 2009

The Archives

  • 04.09.09
    Beware: the wolf in sheep’s clothing Uncategorized | (0)
    Beware Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy (Domino) Beware is Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy’s grandest sounding record yet, but don’t let that wrongfoot you. His songs thrive on an innate and unnerving tension. The instrumentation – warm fiddle and pedal steel, acoustic and electric guitars, communal co-ed backing vocals – gives the impression of rustic hearth and home, crackling fires and woven throws draped over ratty but comfortable sofas, a scruffy mutt dozing on the floor. But, um, beware, there are loaded guns planted all over the place. Billy’s deceptively conciliatory tones betray dark barbs, graveyard jokes and old grudges. It’s most disconcerting. The listener throws ...
  • 04.07.09
    Return of the Noisemaker Uncategorized | (0)
    Armageddon is in effect, go get a bus pass. Jinx Lennon is back, and boy is he pissed. The 45-year-old Dundalk man’s fourth album Trauma Themes Idiot Times is a state of the nation rail against the reduction of all human experience to Cubism: the centrally-heated cube of the home; the fluorescent cube of the classroom; the sealed cube of the car; the honeycomb cube of the office; and ultimately, the lead-lined cube of the coffin. Yes, the new album has moments of tenderness and great beauty (‘The Ferris Wheel At Dowdallshill’ and ‘The Orange Cranes Of Greenore’ are two ...
  • 04.06.09
    No Second Acts Uncategorized | (0)
    AO Scott on the American short story. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/weekinreview/05scott.html?_r=1&hpw
  • 04.06.09
    Full Metal Beckett Uncategorized | (0)
    Round here we’re suckers for brutalising records that betray some governing sense of wicked intelligence. Produced by Gang Of Four man Andy Gill – who’s also done the honours for the Chili Peppers and The Jesus Lizard – Therapy’s tenth album Crooked Timber sounds feral and sabre toothed, but there’s also an underlying layer of choral music (‘Exiles’) and even krautrock on the epic ‘The Magic Mountain’ (after Mann), not to mention a ream of literary references. “A big defining influence on this record was Samuel Beckett of all people,” admits Therapy mainman Andy Cairns. “Initially the record was going ...
  • 04.03.09
    Get Yer Ya-Yas Out Uncategorized | (0)
    At 60 revolutions per minute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jx-HvPXIuVs&feature=related
  • 04.01.09
    The Gospel according to Crumb Uncategorized | (0)
    R Crumb does the Book of Genesis. For real. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/arts/01arts-RCRUMBZAPSTH_BRF.html?_r=1&hpw
  • 04.01.09
    Saturday Night of the Hunter Uncategorized | (0)
    Friar Murphy will be filling the Pick One Thing slot on Saturday's Culture Shock show on Newstalk between 7 and 9. His choice? Charles Laughton's 1955 film Night of the Hunter.