:: Sister Ghost – Stay Spooky (EP, Third Ear)
HALLOWEEN may have come and gone already, but Belfast indie rockers Sister Ghost are encouraging us all to keep in touch with the other side for just a wee bit longer with their brand new Stay Spooky EP.
It's another milestone for band leader Shannon D O'Neill and co (Maeve Mulholland on bass, Stephen 'Leaky' Leacock on drums) which finds them pushing their sound in pleasing new directions right from the downbeat and – dare I suggest, spooky – opener Sink Like A Stone.
This atmospheric lament about power and control contrasts nicely with the catchy rockers New Age Witch and Buried Alive – the latter cathartic anthem being one of the most perfectly formed scuzzy scream-along punk-pop/alt-rock hybrids the band have offered us to date – before the surfy, hand-clapping closer Cut Like a Thorn ends things on a deceptively cheery and upbeat note that's something different again for a band clearly enjoying a purple patch of creativity this side of lockdown.
The whole EP is a total blast and well worth a fiver of your hard-earned cash, especially when you get two free button badges with which to better advertise your love of all things Sister Ghost when you go see them opening for We Are Scientists at the Limelight on November 30.
Get haunted now at Sisterghost.bandcamp.com, tickets for the WAS show are on sale now via Ticketmaster.ie.
:: Lost Brothers new video and Irish tour
THE Losties have weathered the Covid storms and are currently back on the road around Ireland and beyond: in fact, they are headed to Belfast shortly, for a show at the Ulster Sports Club on December 3.
To celebrate the news of the tour, Oisín and Mark have recently released a brand new video for their classic third single After The Rain. As you may recall, the song features indie legend M Ward on electric guitar and Bob Dylan sideman Tony Garnier on bass duties, while the excellent new clip was created by Liverpool film-maker Gavin Wood, a longtime collaborator with the band who chose the visual theme "hallucinations of a dancing alien with bubbles for a head" and ran with it to fine effect.
"Musically, After The Rain is inspired by Billie Holliday, Rory Gallagher and The Beta Band," explain Oisín and Mark.
"The lyrics were inspired by a photo entitled After The Rain by photographer Michael Gannon. It's not often we write about the craft of songwriting. But in this instance that's how it turned out. This song is a travelogue and tries to express the process a songwriter can go through sometimes.
"We tried to leave as much space as we could between the notes so as to capture a certain feeling. There's always doubt and vulnerability when recording a new tune and this take was the band learning the song in the studio while the tape was rolling. We used the rehearsal in the end."
Those Lost Brothers Irish tour dates in full:
Tonight – St Patrick's Gateway, Waterford
Saturday November 20 – Live At St Luke's, Cork with special guest Lorraine Nash (sold out)
Sunday November 21 – Dolan's, Limerick
Wednesday December 1 – The Spirit Store, Dundalk
Thursday December 2 – Vicar Street, Dublin with special guest Steve Wickham (sold out)
Friday December 3 – Ulster Sports Club, Belfast with special guest Conor Mason
Monday December 20 – The Solstice Arts, Navan with special guests Donal Lunny and Paddy Glackin
Tuesday December 21 – The Solstice Arts, Navan with special guest Niamh Regan
Stay up-to-date with the band at Lostbrothersband.com.
:: Arab Strap announce Irish tour
FINALLY for this week, when Strange Victory promoter Darren emailed to say he was bringing the re-awakened Arab Strap back to Belfast next year, I initially wondered if the last time I saw these maverick Scots miserablists could really have been all the way back in 1998.
On that memorably messy occasion, Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton played the Mandela Hall (RIP) at Queen's University as part of Mary-Anne Hobbs' Radio 1 Breezeblock tour – a particularly chaotic, drunken evening which also featured under-rated baggy/kraut/Stooges fusionists Campag Velocet as an opening act and a climactic set by local boy made good David Holmes.
A good 95 per cent of the absolutely wasted crowd were either there to see 'Holmer' or just randomers determined to get 'wrote aff': neither camp could have been less interested Arab Strap's atmospheric soundtrack of minimal beats and world-weary mumbles, mostly cherry-picked from their then as-yet-unreleased second album Philophobia – much to the visible annoyance of Aidan and Malcolm, who had to endure the crowd's incessant chatting/braying throughout their set and had to be vigorously cajoled into providing an encore.
The duo's last tune was, of course, their 1996 'hit' The First Big Weekend, but it was delivered like a spiteful sonic middle-finger salute to the massed/messed yackers, with volume, effects, police sirens (I'm sure I remember sirens) and strobes cranked to epilepsy-inducing levels.
I was so impressed that I immediately purchased the limited edition Arab Strap Live seven-inch they were selling on the merch stall as a memento of a band who surely wouldn't be back our way any time soon.
Thankfully, the Strap did return to Belfast a couple more times over the next few years – twice, according to the internets – and I now know for sure I saw them again at least once, in 1999 at The Empire, because I found the gig ticket tucked away inside aforementioned seven-inch (this was 'a thing' in the 90s) at the weekend.
Thinking on it, I've now unearthed vague memories of a much more engaged and enthusiastic reception for the band's set that night. In fact, I'm sure I remember people actually apologising to them for the rude reception of the previous year – this was, lest we forget, still a time when most acts needed little more encouragement to leave Belfast off their tour itineraries – and the duo being vaguely embarrassed that we should have felt embarrassed.
Anyway, after splitting on good terms in 2006 to focus on their respective solo work, Aidan and Malcolm began enjoying the odd burst of live Arab Strap activity from 2011 onwards, a promising state of affairs which culminated in the release of As Days Get Dark, the pair's first album for 16 years, back in March.
The band's introspective and darkly witty electro-folk soundtracks are very much right for the current times and thus we should all rejoice in the fact that Arab Strap have announced a short Irish tour for next summer, kicking off at The Empire in Belfast on July 14 and taking in Cork at Cyprus Avenue (July 15), Dolan's in Limerick (July 16) and a pair of Dublin dates at Whelan's (July 17 & 18).
Go and have a listen to that new album and then grab your tickets via arabstrap.scot.
