Smithwick’s 10° West in Achill is a New Year’s Eve experience offering something different for your NYE.
Spend time on the Mayo island for the turn of the year, with yoga, cycling and hiking in the daytime and music in the evening in the heated Keel tent curated by Homebeat with:
Accommodation on the island is basically gone at this point but there are people who accommodation (sold separately) and no tickets, this is for you.
To enter the competition for two tickets – sign up to the mailing list AND email [email protected]m with 10 Degrees West as the headline. You must be a member of the mailing list and have emailed to be eligible. The draw happens on Friday morning and the winner will be contacted then.
In my opinion, the best New Year’s Eve celebrations are the ones that take out to somewhere new, away from the norm and away from huge crowds.
So Smithwick’s 10° West is a perfect opportunity to do just that. Smithwick’s is putting on an alternative celebration for those who are looking for something different to do with their New Year’s Eve and it involves spending time on the beautiful Achill Island in Mayo.
Homebeat has curated a lineup of music that includes our own Lumo Club, Daithi, Talos, Stomptown Brass and Sing Along Social by night in the heated Keel tent. There will also be acoustic and pop-up performances in the pubs too.
By day, there is yoga, cycling and hiking hosted by Pure Magic.
Tickets are priced from €45 which includes two daytime activities, access to the Keel tent and a complimentary pint of Smithwick’s. Accommodation is separate to the ticket fee but B&Bs, holiday homes, guesthouses and hotels are available.
Bantum’s mini-album Move from last year has spawned a series of solid remixes from Mix & Fairbanks and Phare and now, Daithí is the latest producer to tackle the Cork man’s track ‘Feel Your Rhythm’ with a fresh perspective.
The Clareman takes the original’s feature guests Rusangano Family and Senita (Lakerama, Shookrah) and brings some fresh energy to the original. This tune slayed at Body & Soul so catch Bantum and Another Love Story and Electric Picnic in the next month.
Castlepalooza is one of the nicest little music festival in Ireland and this year’s festival has just added a load of acts for Tullamore Castle from Friday August 4th to Sunday August 6th.
Joining the lineup are:
Le Galaxie
Denney
Hiva Oa
Liza Flume
Oddsocks,
Bad Sea
Bitch Falcon
Daithí
Dublin Ukulele Collective
Dreaming of Jupiter
Floor Staff
Hot Cops
Ivy Nations
Mywoollyhat
Prymary Colours
Dip Djs
RSAG
Third Smoke
Tiz McNamara
Wastefellow
Elaine Mai
Seo Linn
DJ additions on the Friday and Saturday night in the Courtyard courtesy of Bedlam and Abstract are:
Al Murphy
Arman Giorgio
Bruno Grecchi
Beat Division
Bedlam DJs
Betty Jiminez
Boots & Kats
Charlie Garrett B2B AJ
Chasing Abbey
Daser B2B Mark Gill
Deadwax
Denney
Dylan Higgins
Fio’n’Jio
Fintan Lalor
Heroes in Hiding DJ Set
Killthedjs
Karl Guest B2B Aiden Thompson
Mark Byrne
Minisoul
Pat Hyland
Sarah Mooney
Sally Cinnamon
Day tickets from €59 + fees, weekend from €129 + fees.
Daithí’s new EP Holiday Home features 5 tracks of electronic pop constructed with elements drawn from the real world. Recorded sounds of the west of Ireland, the songs of motion and colour were made in the far flung parts of the country. Hooking up with Sinead White on two tracks and Elaine Mai on another, Holiday Home makes a case for a rural Irish dance pop that stands tall on the world stage. Uundeniably Irish, but modern at the same time,” as Daithí puts it, via the track-by-track below.
Daithi:
At the start of 2016 I bought a field recorder and started recording the sounds of the west of Ireland in an attempt to build a library of samples completely unique to me. I started renting out houses along the coast for weeks at a time, bringing a make-shift studio with me to islands like Achill and Valentia. Once I had some music together, I brought some of my favourite vocalists out to the west, away from the pressure of the normal recording studio environment. The result is Holiday Home, a 5 track EP built completely in the west, using sounds from the west. Every sample has a backstory, every sound has meaning.
Falling For You
Falling For You was one of the first tracks I wrote using my own natural samples. The sea sound is from Inch beach in Cork, the bell sounds are cut up samples from a wind chime I found in an Airbnb in Achill. Sinead recorded these vocals on Valentia with me, and I think it’s my favourite vocal I’ve ever worked on. It’s so undeniably Irish, but feels modern at the same time, which is kind of my buzz.
Aeroplane
Sinead and I wrote this song inspired by old Irish TV dramas from the 80s and 90s. True to the people of Ireland at the time, the characters in these shows all seem to have a hard time expressing their feelings, and we wanted to write a song that imagined what was going on in their heads, while they stumbled through talking to their love interest.
Holiday Home
I do a lot of driving late at night after playing shows, and driving home to Co. Clare feels very solitary. There’s something interesting about playing to a room full of people, and then suddenly being completely alone in the middle of nowhere, with only your thoughts and some tunes to keep you company. This track is inspired by that feeling. The main rhythm is a recording of an 11 year old bodhran player who won the all Ireland feadh in the 90s.
Coral
I have been playing versions of the Coral Sean Nos vocal sample in my live show for years now, but was never happy with how it sounded with normal modern dance samples. All of the bell sounds in this track come from a steel lamp that has been in my studios since I started writing music, so it seemed fitting to use it in this track.
Wrap Up Tight
Elaine and I have written music together for years now, she’s one of my all time favourite people. We wrote the song about the Irish way of dealing with something upsetting; Joking about it, hiding our feelings, and avoiding the confrontation. A friend of ours had a brother who was leaving for a tour abroad in the army, and that featured heavily as part of the inspiration. The song was written in Valentia, and at the start you can hear an old recording of whale song I found, recorded off the coast of the island.
Daithí is back with a new tune rom his upcoming Holiday Home EP, a release which has given us the grade A electronic pop banger ‘Falling For You’ with Sinead White.
The EP was recorded in houses and holiday homes in islands like Achill and Valentia and the last track had some bells and sea sounds from this island in its production.
This title track is an instrumental song that had a tough percussive streak that somehow manages to illuminate the link between techno and the bodhrán (as the main rhythm is a recording of an 11 year-old player of the instrument who won the all Ireland Fleadh in the ’90s.)
“I do a lot of driving late at night after playing shows, and driving home to Co. Clare feels very solitary. There’s something interesting about playing to a room full of people, and then suddenly being completely alone in the middle of nowhere, with only your thoughts and some tunes to keep you company”
It proved a fruitful partnership so the pair are at it again on the lead song from Daithí’s forthcoming EP Holiday Home, due in March. Holiday Home came about when Daithí bought a field recorded and began recording the sounds of the west of Ireland in an attempt to build a unique library of sounds.
‘Falling For You’, his collaboration with White, uses sea sounds from Inch beach in Cork and bell sounds from a wind chime I found in an Air Bnb in Achill. White recorded the vocals on Valentia Island.
Watch the video, also suitably set in the West of Ireland by Feel Good Lost.
In a short time, TooFools, a band brought to us by Lorcan O’Dwyer, Steven McCann and their big gang of friends have made a splash on the Dublin music landscape.
They introduced themselves with a live video by Christian Tierney of Insanity.
Now, nearly a year later and with much live experience under their belts, ‘Touch’ is an indication of what comes next – a disco-funking electronic soul stomper that recalls Jungle in its backdrop and falsetto.
The atmosfolk duo Saint Sister, Morgan MacIntyre and Gemma Doherty have established themselves as one of the best new Irish bands of the last year and a bit.
The pair have now released two new songs to keep us sated. ‘Tin Man’ and ‘Corpses’ are two songs recorded with Alex Ryan which are released through Communion Music’s Singles Club.
Communion have a habit of illuminating breaking folk artists and these two songs by the band, while they very much fit their harmony-folk aesthetic, there’s more atmosphere at play in the arrangements than before.
Migration is Simon Green’s sixth album and he says it’s “the study of people and spaces.”
“It’s interesting how one person will take an influence from one part of the world and move with that influence and effect another part of the world. Over time, the identities of places evolve.”
‘Kerala’ from it features a sample of Brandy. The video was directed by Bison and features Gemma Arterton.
DJ Shadow – ‘Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt’ (Salva remix)
DJ Shadow touched down in Dublin on Thursday for a rare live set at Metropolis. A producer with such a revered first album often struggles to stay modern in what follows (Shadow addresses that weight here). Luckily, his latest album The Mountain Shall Fall has some peaks on it (most notably Run The Jewels) but it’s a recent remix album of Entroducing featuring remixes by contemporaries like Hudson Mohawke, Teklife, Lee Bannon, Prince Paul and Clams Casino that attempts a reimagining of the seminal first album. Most successful of the lot is Salva’s footwork remix of ‘Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt’, which Shadow incorporated into his set at Metropolis.
Which is a pity when they are knocking out songs like ‘Chariot’.
7.
Roosevelt – ‘Teardrops’
Recent album of the week beneficiary Roosevelt delivers a fresh take on dancefloor classic Womack and Womack’s ‘Teardrops’. He’s on a European tour, though no Irish date.
It proved a fruitful partnership so the pair are at it again on the lead song from Daithí’s forthcoming EP Holiday Home, due in March.
Holiday Home came about when Daithí bought a field recorded and began recording the sounds of the west of Ireland in an attempt to build a unique library of sounds.
I started renting out houses along the coast for weeks at a time, bringing a make-shift studio with me to islands like Achill and Valentia. Once I had some music together, I brought some of my favourite vocalists out to the west, away from the pressure of the normal recording studio environment. The result is Holiday Home, a five- track EP built completely in the west, using sounds from the west.”
‘Falling For You’, his collaboration with White, uses sea sounds from Inch beach in Cork and bell sounds from a wind chime I found in an Air Bnb in Achill. White recorded the vocals on Valentia Island.
“I think it’s my favourite vocal I’ve ever worked on. It’s so undeniably Irish, but feels modern at the same time, which is kind of my buzz.”
Watch the video, also suitably set in the West of Ireland by Feel Good Lost.
Holiday Home Tracklist
Falling For You (feat. Sinead White)
Aeroplane (feat. Sinead White)
Holiday Home
Coral
Wrap Up Tight (feat. Elaine Mai)
Tour Dates
Thursday 8th December – Brubakers, Dundalk Friday 23rd December – Opium Rooms, Dublin Tuesday 27th December – Cyprus Avenue, Cork Sat 31st December – Róisín Dubh, Galway
While the likes of Grandmaster Flash, Booka Brass Band, Interskalactic play the Block party outdoors and Kelly-Anne Byrne and Dmitri In Paris have a disco ball upstairs, the Tony Ryan room on Sunday June 26th will feature:
DJ Cian Ó Cíobháin (Midnight – 1:30pm)
A stalwart of Irish radio for the last 17 years through his show on RnaG An Taobh Tuathail, Cian is one of Ireland’s finest DJs (110th Street in Galway) and selectors and he doesn’t play Dublin enough.
Solar Bears (live A/V set) – (10:30pm – 11:30pm)
After three albums of on Warp Records, Planet Mu and Sunday Best, Solar Bears have confirmed themselves as Ireland’s most cinematically-driven act taking in wistful Boards Of Canada-style electronic ambience, krautrock, library music, psychedelia and tough synthesizers. The Interlude show will be a live A/V set. Check out their recent Boiler Room mix for an idea of what to expect.
Bantum: Prince A/V set (9pm – 10pm)
Ruairi Lynch is a huge Prince fan who has played his own unique take on Prince tracks live in the past. At Interlude, Lynch will air his specially remixed and mashed up tribute to the Purple One with visuals by LeTissier.
The Galway electronic pop producer with the fiddle in tow recently followed up his debut album with this smash featuring Sinead White – ‘Love’s On Top’.
Adultrock (7pm – 7.45pm)
With a new release on Bodytonic this week, Gavin Elsted is pushing the analogue buttons of electronica with his hazy widescreen dancefloor productions which take inspiration from John Talabot and a hardware-heavy recording ethos.
Sal Stapleton has been releasing a tune and video a month of dark-gilded electronic R&B that recalls FKA Twigs and Maya Jane Coles. Live, she’ll be flanked by dancers.
I first heard ‘Love On Top’ at Daithí’s incendiary Body&Soul Electric Picnic set last year. At that time, Dublin singer-songwriter Sinead White was known for a pleasant debut album of bright songs.
Paired with Daithí’s electronic pop sensibilities though, White’s voice became a powerhouse on that day, in a dance music context. I’m delighted that the recorded version of that track is finally here.
“I came across Sinead White last year, and really loved how her voice had a unique ‘Irish’ quality to it, but at the same time felt very contemporary. It was a perfect match for Love’s on Top, which was a track inspired by Galway City at night, especially the west end and around the Spanish Arch. This track could be considered the lead single to the Tribes E.P, and it’s a good snapshot of what the rest of the record is like”.
“The first single, Mary Keanes Introduction, was a real game changer for me, because it was the first track I released inspired by a new direction. I want to write dance music that’s not just inspired by traditional music, but by the culture, the scenery and atmosphere of the west of Ireland. Tribes is the start of me going in that direction, it’s full of nature sounds and samples from this part of the country. Even for that simple reason, this EP means way more to me than anything I’ve released so far. ”
The song is taken from the Tribes EP which is out on February 26th and also features the Choice Music Prize Song of the Year nominee ‘Mary Keane’s Introduction’. The release is available digitally and on 12″ vinyl (pre-order that)
Daithí tour dates
Feb 19th: Generator Hostel, Dublin – Free Feb 24th: HMV Sound Garden, Sligo Feb 26th: Roisin Dubh, Galway (Tribes launch) March 16th: Connolly’s of Leap, Cork March 19th: Cyprus Avenue, Cork
After hosting the latest edition of Boiler Room on its premises, the Generator Hostel in Smithfield is introducing Generator Live, a new showcase of emerging Irish music live at the Generator.
The new video for Daithí’s brilliant ‘Mary Keane’s Introduction‘, a song which features his 90 year-old Clare grandmother recounting her life’s love, explores the Irish landscape (Galway and Mayo) while very firmly taking a nostalgic hue through Irish symbols: St. Brigid’s Cross, coastlines, cottages (the one belongs to Daithí’s grandmother) and World War II outposts, some which were destroyed in storms.
Dotted along the coast of Ireland, there are lookout posts built during WWII as a means for Irish soldiers to keep an eye on the sea. Unintentionally, they have made a kind of treasure hunt for amazing views of the coastline, most of which are so hidden that very few people know they exist. While shooting, we had a lot of fun searching for these lookout posts, some of which have been completely destroyed by huge storms.
This video was filmed at the lookout posts on the Galway and Mayo coastline. The house at the start is my Grandmothers house in Clare, who is also speaking at the start of the track.
Fancy a plus 1 and a pitcher of beer for one the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble Christmas shows in the Sugar Club? Pick one from below and enter below:
Thursday December 3 with Stomptown Brass + AfterParty Friday December 4 with Interskalactic + AfterParty Saturday December 5 with Ajo Arkestra + AfterParty Sunday December 6 with special guest tba. + AfterParty
Wednesday December 9: Hudson Mohawke @ The Academy (this Noisey doc on him is great)
Friday December 11: Daithí @ The Workman’s Club
How to enter free entry comps – Email [email protected] with the gig above in the Subject line you’re entering for along with your full name and phone number (for late contact) in the body of the message. Draw closes Friday at 3pm and winners will be contacted after.
Gig news today:
Julia Holter is playing Button Factory on February 17th next year. Tickets €18.50+ from Ticketmaster. Her new album Have You In My Wilderness is very good.
Discotekken host a Jurassic Park Party on Friday November 27th @ The Sugar Club featuring a screening of the movie, a set from Attention Bébé, DJs and BBQ. Tickets €8–12 and here’s the Facebook event.
The National Concert Hall have a series of concerts called Imagining Home, featuring seven stylistically different concerts to celebrate 100 years of Ireland from Monday the 28th of March to Sunday 3rd of April 2016.
Of interest to me and perhaps you:
ENGLAND Tuesday 29 March 8pm Martin Carthy, Camille O’Sullivan, Cait O’Riordan, Paul Brady, Andy Irvine, Cathal Coughlan, Lisa O’Neill and more to be announced. A conversation between neighbours in song hosted by writer and broadcaster John Kelly, England celebrates the musical interplay between Ireland and England.
THIS IS IRELAND Saturday 2 April 8pm Glen Hansard gathers friends and collaborators to celebrate Ireland in 2016. (Guests to be announced).
OUT OF THE TRADITION Sunday 3 April 8pm A journey through Irish traditional music from its roots to the thriving traditional scene of today and an exploration of the great works of the Irish language and its place in Ireland featuring Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill, Usher’s Island, the Tulla Céilí Band, Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and Iarla Ó Lionáird. More to be announced.
Also happening at the Royal Festival Hall in London is IMAGINING IRELAND on Friday April 29th supported by the Embassy of Ireland in London and Culture Ireland, featuring celebration of Ireland’s musical journey over the last 100 years and the musical interplay between Ireland and Britain featuring Paul Brady, Camille O’Sullivan, James Vincent McMorrow, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill, Andy Irvine, Cait O’Riordan, Martin Carthy and John Kelly.
West of Ireland electro/pop fiddle and button pusher Daithí has been finding his own groove of late with shows at Electric Picnic among the best that he’s played in his career.
As a fiddle player, it’s no surprise that Daithí takes inspiration from the past, but his new track ‘Mary Keane’s Introduction’ has a personal significance as it is interwoven with an interview with his granny, as he explains:
“A few years ago my Grandmother was interviewed about what life was like in Clare when she was younger. When I heard the recording I couldn’t believe how personal and heartfelt it was, I hadn’t heard anyone her age talk so honestly about love. I put parts of the interview to some chords I was writing and everything clicked into place. It’s a great introduction to the upcoming record, which is inspired by living in the west of Ireland. My Grandmother is 90 years old, and still lives in a thatched cottage in Ballyvaughan”.
The track opens the Tribes EP which overall, was inspired by the West of Ireland landscape and cities, “something that reflects what life is like for young people living in the west of Ireland”.
The EP drops in February and features vocal turns from Sinead White, Elaine Mai .Daithí has a date at the Workman’s Club, Dublin on Friday 11th December. ‘Mary Keane’s Introduction’ is out digitally on November 13th.
