Claire Hall and Charlotte Dryden on this year’s Sound of Belfast, the local-focused city festival built around a healthier, more sustainable music scene.
Sound of Belfast runs for 11 days, from Thursday November 5th to Sunday November 15th, with live shows, album launches, exhibitions, anniversary performances, new collaborations and industry events across the city. It’s produced by the Oh Yeah Music Centre and celebrates Belfast’s status as a UNESCO City of Music.
On the podcast this week I’m joined by Claire Hall, who leads the festival’s programming and DJs as Venus Dupree, and Charlotte Dryden, CEO of Oh Yeah Music Centre. We talk about what the festival is trying to do this year, the anniversaries and album launches on the bill, the new generation coming through, and what a good day out in Belfast looks like.
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Music credits:
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Robocobra Quartet – Haha
Joshua Burnside – The Last Armchair
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Highlights from the conversation
A smaller, more sustainable programme
This year’s programme is deliberately slightly smaller: 55 events across 14 venues, compared with 66 events and around 20 venues last year. The aim is to put the limited funds available where they help most. Five promoters are being spotlighted with bursary awards, there’s an album launch strand, and the festival has doubled its sponsorship through Arts & Business, with Budvar and Nori Spears on board. That has made possible the first Budvar Music Trail, a run of free and affordable gigs featuring emerging artists who have been given higher bursaries and are paid to play.
Punk at 50 and other anniversaries
Fifty years of punk opens the festival with Alter Your Native Land, an exhibition by Stuart Bailie, and a launch gig that mixes the originals with newer acts such as Tramp and Problem Patterns. On Friday, Eyes Open marks 20 years of Snow Patrol’s album, with younger Northern Irish artists, including Jack Devlin and James Guitari (Tribal Ting), giving the songs their own treatment. Duke Special’s Songs From The Deep Forest turns 20 and Bap Kennedy is remembered ten years on.
Album launches and a five-hour listening party
Alana Henderson and Ryan Vail both launch albums on the same night, and Robocobra Quartet are holding a listening party for Hundred Pieces, a new 100-track, five-hour album, inspired by the durational art of Marina Abramović. It’s a natural fit for a listening-party fan like me.
The new generation
Scratch My Progress, Oh Yeah’s talent development programme, showcases its latest acts on Tuesday November 10th: Pinsleep, Lord Jane, The Thing Is and Gush. Each act receives mentoring, a professionally recorded track, rehearsal time and about £5,000 of investment, and this year’s mentor is Ben McGee, who works with Chalk and Joshua Burnside. It doubles as a pre-party for the NI Music Prize at the Ulster Hall the following night, Wednesday November 11th.
Trad, reimagined, and a very black night
Claire is especially excited about The New Wave, which closes the festival on Sunday November 15th. It’s an immersive reimagining of the trad session led by Hana Abri Smith’s Atóg, a group of trad and folk musicians that includes Joshua Burnside, alongside harpist Gráinne Meyer. Before that, on Saturday November 14th, VANTA returns for a second year, an audio-visual collaboration between Timmy Stewart and Johnny Delaney (The Fully Automatic Model), who have been given the festival’s highest bursary this year.
Nights out and a perfect Belfast day
We also talk about the city’s club scene, the work of Free The Night on licensing and late-night transport, and the North-South connections between scenes. And, to finish, we ask for a perfect Belfast day out: Vietnamese egg coffee at Phin on the Ormeau Road, pints at the Sunflower, a browse around Sound Advice record shop, a stop at Boundary Brewery and pizza at BullHouse.
The full programme is at soundofbelfast.com.
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
