“I’m going get my piano tuned now, I’m very excited!” chirps Amy Montgomery as we wrap up our call. The 20-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is just over a week away from the release of her debut EP following two new music videos, a string of singles and touring as far away as Australia. The culmination of four years’ work, Intangible is twenty-one minutes of powerful alt rock with squalls of guitar feedback lifted by bright, fluttering synths and vocal prowess akin to Janis Joplin, Alanis Morissette and even Miley Cyrus. …

When Joshua Burnside was about six he planned to run away from home, escaping through his ground floor bedroom window. Finding out about this plan, his older sister warned that if he jumped out the window, he’d go straight through the ground and into the depths of Hell to meet the Devil himself.

That, of course, never happened. But still, the formative memory gives Into the Depths of Hell its title.A follow-up to 2017’s NI Music Prize-winning Ephrata, the album draws on its predecessor’s mélange of Americana, Irish folk and Cumbia rhythms, but with a decidedly darker edge. …

Peter J. McCauley has spent much of lockdown watching RuPaul’s Drag Race with his wife. Aside from working on his latest LP Amnesty, the singer and multi-instrumentalist has already caught up to season 11. “I like to live in an alternate reality where my opinion on drag artistry matters,” he laughs. It’s a rare period of rest for the Belfast native who is more often found on the road, once touring these islands in a Transit van behind the drum kit for Mojo Fury, and more recently at festivals across the world as Rams’ Pocket Radio.

Under his former alias…

“Women are at the forefront because naturally we had to be”

Lisasinson

Spanish garage rock is almost entirely synonymous with Hinds, the rambunctious, all-female band who took Madrid’s sounds to international ears in 2016 with their jangly debut Leave Me Alone. Formed in 2011 by Carlotta Cosials and Ana Perrote, the frontwomen joined forces with bassist Ade Martín and drummer Amber Grimbergen to become Spain’s most internationally successful indie export, sparking an interest in the Spanish capital’s thriving underground scene. …

Out today via Belfast imprint Third Bar, The Fight Is Not Over is a fist-clenched snapshot of a scene of artists that insist upon making their voices — and music — heard. Kristen Sinclair gets the full lowdown on the four-track live EP from Problem Patterns, Strange New Places, Sister Ghost and Gender Chores, and digs deep to trace the trajectory of a movement that has no intentions to slow down any time soon.

EP artwork by Jacky SheridanBuy The Fight Is Not Over on 12″ vinyl here.

‘The Fight Is Not Over’ reads the slogan emblazoned across the jackets of Strange New Places onstage at the Ulster Hall at the end of their electrifying set at the NI Music Prize in November. “As much as the small victories are meaningful and worth celebrating, our work is not done. While injustice persists, we won’t shut up,” lead vocalist Ashley Jones tells the packed-out venue and live radio broadcast over Northern Ireland, “Until a sea-change in our society affords us autonomy rather than oppression, we…

Many great songwriters write best about what they know. Some, on the other hand, abandon the familiar and look to the stars for musical inspiration. The mystical chaos of the great beyond has influenced many a composition over the decades, from the classical suites of pre-WW1 to the Space Age of the sixties, and the cosmic alt-rock of more recent years. Encompassing jazz to electronic sounds, musicians have found a muse in the planets, aliens and stars of our universe. …

Getting a thirteen-piece band together to rearrange twenty-five years’ worth of songs for a two-and-a-half-hour set is no mean feat. Incorporating strings, brass, slide guitar and an intermission, this is no ordinary gig rehearsal. For founding Snow Patrol member and drummer Jonny Quinn, it’s just part of his day job. “We have about over a hundred songs to learn, but it’s good fun,” the Bangor native tells the Gown from his home in London. “It’s great to reimagine the songs for ourselves, as well as the people who really enjoy hearing them in different ways.”

Following a seven-year hiatus, last…

Bruce Fielder, better known as Sigala, answers the phone from his studio in London. Having racked up two billion audio streams, six Top 10 singles and the highest-charting dance debut of 2018, the superstar DJ and producer is preparing for a mammoth tour that will take him across the globe: “I’m really looking forward to travelling to different places where I haven’t played as much. Some places on the tour I haven’t played before but there’s a fan base there, so it’s going to be amazing to perform for and meet these people.” Sigala’s mind-boggling success is almost at odds…