GIVING IT ALL AWAY

Originally published in The Irish Times, January 31st 2011

“YOU HAVE TO speculate to accumulate.” Wise words for a student of business, perhaps, but not exactly a phrase you’d expect a young Irish band to live by. Yet over the past year, several of our musical acts have borne that maxim in mind when unleashing their work on the public. The industry has been in a state of flux since the internet arrived: people consume music differently and physical copies are being increasingly overlooked in favour of downloads. If someone wants an album they can get it for free – whether through legal or illegal channels.

LCMDF: THIS IS HARD CORPS

Originally published in The Irish Times, February 18th 2011

IF APPEARANCES really count for something, then Emma Kemppainen should be a right moody sort. Her band, LCMDF (who were briefly known as Le Corps Mince de Françoise before abbreviating), make music that treads a thin line between ultra-trendy pop and the more obscure end of 1980s and 1990s indie. Their artwork is sleek, and accompanying press photos of the Finnish duo – Emma and her younger sister, Mia – exhibit sharp cheekboned pouts with nary a smile.

THE CELESTIAL CAFÉ

 

I recently finished this book, and (eventually) thought it was ace. I love Belle & Sebastian, but can see how their tweeness rankles with some people (although not so much these days, it must be said. I prefer B&S version 2.0 to their early stuff).

This is a collection of online diary entries written by Stuart Murdoch in the years before, during and after the release of their albums Dear Catastrophe Waitress and The Life Pursuit, and also documents the seeds of his God Help the Girl project. It took about a hundred pages to really get going, and is pretty disjointed by its very nature of journal entries, but I found it totally absorbing after that.