psych-rock
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O Emperor: “A More Oblique and Meandering Way”
O Emperor return to Quarter Block Party on the Friday night, headlining the festival they helped place on the map with its first headline show in 2015. Mike McGrath-Bryan chats with guitarist/vocalist Phil Christie. It’s been a while for formerly-Cork-based psych-rockers O Emperor: two years, to be precise, since their last set of live excursions,…
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The Altered Hours: “It’s All in the Guts”
The Altered Hours have been on a roll in the last eighteen months or so, going from the release of debut long-player In Heat/Not Sorry, to European touring, to bringing the roof down on Cork venue Gulpd Cafe on its final night (all of which you can read about in Village Magazine’s piece on the…
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The Bonk/Fixity: Improv Jazz & Psych-Rock Exploration
One of the sleeper hits of the Jazz Festival is set for upstairs in the Roundy on Castle Street on the Sunday night, as psych-rock outfit The Bonk launch their new album with Leeside jazzists Fixity in a double-headline show. Mike McGrath-Bryan investigates further. Since debuting in earnest in 2015, The Bonk have been on…
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The Altered Hours: “It’s Always There”
As one body of work fades to memory and another begins to unfurl for Leeside psychedelia outfit The Altered Hours, Mike McGrath-Bryan speaks with frontman Cathal MacGabhann about the creative process, recording in Berlin, and the ebb & flow of change in the band’s home city. In the realms of the arts in Ireland, relating…
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The Bonk: Back to the Primitive
Eschewing finely-honed songwriting for propulsive rhythm and improvisation, The Bonk are a rising quantity in Cork music. Mike McGrath-Bryan speaks with bandleader Phil Christie. Since emerging in the last two years, The Bonk have become a lesser-spotted, highly sought-after musical animal, with the emphasis of creative head and Waterford man Phil Christie, also of O…
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The Great Balloon Race: Lifting Off
The Great Balloon Race play Coughlan’s on May 5th, launcing a new album and breaking a near-year-long hiatus. Mike McGrath-Bryan speaks with guitarist Marcus Gordon. A quiet fixture of Cork’s progressive and psychedelic live bills since their emergence at the beginning of the decade, The Great Balloon Race have married folk and jazz inflections to…
Mike McGrath-Bryan 