Ireland
I write words about the arts, music and cinema. I also shoot and edit videos, and write fiction.
Bernard O'Rourke writes for Culture about CIACLA, the Contemporary Irish Arts Center Los Angeles, an exciting new project promoting contemporary Irish culture in Los Angeles. It's no understatement to say that the packed out launch of CIACLA in Bergamot Station, Santa Monica earlier this month felt like a real moment of celebration for all involved.
BERNARD O’ROURKE REFLECTS ON THE EVOLUTION OF MART OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS.
You'd be forgiven for failing to see the similarities between a toe-tapping trad session and a soaring post-rock soundscape, but Túcan blend the two so seamlessly it's hard to spot where one facet of their sound ends and the other begins. The endlessly eclectic and inventive Irish instrumental act have just released their second album 'Towers'.
There's a lyric on the manic, discoish lead single of Past Pupil Stay Sane that goes: " Man in the pub said play Neil Young / Or a Leonard Cohen song / Play us something we can all sing along / we're tired of listening to your shitty oul sounds ".
At some point in the wake of their 2013 debut album Champagne Holocaust, somebody accused Fat White Family of being fascists. Far for attempting any kind of ham-fisted damage control, the Brixton band have now returned as combat-wearing skinheads with an album that includes songs titled 'Duce', 'Lebensraum' and 'Goodbye Goebbels'.
Electric Picnic doesn't tend to repeat itself. While familiar Irish bands will pop up again and again, the international acts rarely make a repeat appearance. So St. Vincent must be doing something special to be back for a second year running.
With Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett having practically blown the roof off a recent Whelan's show with a barrage of grungy riffs , it'd be reasonable to expect an similar garage rock intensity present on her debut album 'Sometimes I Sit and Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit'.
Every year the GoldenPlec community of writers and photographers (50+) come together to vote on their ones to watch for the upcoming year. After pulling the votes together, we select our 'Plec Picks' for 2017. We have classical artists alongside rap, jazz, funk, grunge and anything in between.
The first thing likely to strike any Irish reader of Emma Donoghue's new novel is the contempt its narrator holds for the Irish. Sure, it may be the obsessively catholic and dismally poor rural Ireland of the 1850s, but it's hard not to see a certain analogue of today's country in the image Donoghue paints - less a literal reflection of said attitudes and more a residual taint of their presence.