VERGE
ISSUE X
Kodaline on learning the hard lessons of music ..... Terry McMahon celebrates Patrick’s Day ..... Donal Ryan’s Recession novels ..... Red Rock’s Peter McKenna on creating a soap ..... Pond chats about rock’s drug culture ..... Podcasts, Games, Style Icons and more
Editor’s Letter Diverged Better Call Saul – Eoghan
As the prequel series to Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is arguably the most anticipated new TV series of this year. Focusing on sleazy lawyer Saul Goodman, back when he was better known as Jimmy McGill, Better Call Saul certainly has large shoes to fill. Thought of by many as the greatest TV series of the modern era, Breaking Bad certainly casts a long shadow and any show hoping to follow that series is sure to be put under intense scrutiny by the always-discerning viewing public. Here’s hoping this new series stays on course and doesn’t ‘break bad’ anytime soon!
Villagers – Robbie
50 Shades of R&G 02 V
Claire Fox With this issue coming out smack bang in the middle of the mania that is R&G Week, we here at The UCC Express knew we would have a battle on our hands. Many laughed in our faces at such a notion, while sceptics scoffed “impossible” at our endeavours to print a newspaper and funky magazine during UCC’s most hectic week. Well, to all you doubters out there, and in the words of Iggy Azalea, “Impossible is nothing” because we did it! And it’s not just any old issue either: with interviews including trailblazing band Kodaline, distinguished Irish author Donal Ryan and reviews from across the spectrum of entertainment, Verge is at your service even during the most outrageous of occasions.
Releasing the romantic novel-turnedfilm on Valentine’s weekend ensured record-breaking cinema box-office attendance, playing on the hearts of lovers and lusting middle-aged women everywhere. The general reaction to the film with make interesting reading considering critics had heckled it with their pre-conceived notions before it had even hit our screens. This notion of having pre-conceived ideas and misconceptions is inherent in Irish society, from social media sarcasm to chit-chat in student common rooms. With Bressie’s speech at the recent ‘Breaking Down Barriers’ talk in UCC urging us to “give up bitching” and practice “self-compassion,” I think it’s time that we, as a university, did just that.
Yet, while the editorial team may have had an ulterior motive in releasing this issue for R&G Week (in order to join in the festivities of the week without being plagued by deadlines; we’re only human!), everyone in the media has an agenda; just ask the 50 Shades of Grey producers.
So instead of spending your R&G Week bitching, why not take part in some quirky charitable events. And on the self-compassion front, you’ve already picked up a copy of Verge, so I think you’re already on the right track!
Verge Editor: Claire Fox
Gaming Editor: Steve Barry
Film & TV: Eoghan Scott
Fashion Editor: Nicole Clinton
Music Editor: Robbie Byrne
Design: Kevin Hosford
Arts & Lit Editor: Molly Forsythe
Have fun!
Since our last issue, a host of Cork gigs have been announced for the early summer months. Conor O’Brien’s Villagers offer the perfect chance to rid those exam blues as they play the Cork Opera House on May 23rd. Great news for fans of Live At The Marquee too as a host of acts including ZZ Top, The Coronas, Billy Idol, Van Morrison and, our current favourites, Kodaline were announced for the Leeside festival.
The Vagina Monologues – Molly Once again UCC’s Dramat Society have organised an exciting and diverse programme for the upcoming weeks. A mix of established plays and innovative originals, there is plenty to look forward to. From this Wednesday to Saturday at the Granary you can catch Darragh Murphy’s adaptation of Arthur Miller’s classic, All My Sons. Soon after, theatre fans are in for a treat with Myrtlehill Terrace which will begin on February 25th. Finally, be sure not to miss this year’s reprise of The Vagina Monologues on the 2nd and 9th March which will be held in conjunction with FemSoc.
New Nintendo 3Ds – Steve Nintendo’s newest revisions of their very successful 3DS consoles, the New Nintendo 3DS and New Nintendo 3DS XL, were released on February 13th, boasting new, head tracking 3D, an extra analog nub and some very fancy processing speeds. So if you’re looking to upgrade or just to join the Nintendo family, this is the best time! Plus, a lot of games are going to be New 3DS only, so you’re gonna have to join at some point!
Campus Style Names: Claudia Leung and Chloe Murphy Favourite shops: Missguided (online) and Bershka Why did you choose to wear these outfits? “We wore them because we love to wear black and they are just really comfortable.” Image by: Aoife Cheung
The thing about Donal Ryan… Claire Fox speaks with the Booker Prize nominated author about rejection and his ‘Recession novels’.
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pon writing his most famous work, Ulysses, James Joyce would spend hours piecing together an entire sentence in order to find “the perfect order of words.” And while this may seem an extreme idea, award-winning author Donal Ryan can relate to Joyce’s thinking. “I was at it for years and I’d write words and words but it was just all drivel really. It took years for me to approach a point where I could feel happy with one sentence,” says Ryan, hinting at the complexity of the writing process.
“I’d write a short story and feel sick reading it back and put it away for long periods, but I’d always come back again.” “I know it sounds very precious now but that’s just the way it was. I’d write a short story and feel sick reading it back and put it away for long periods, but I’d always come back again.” Born and bred in North Tipperary, Ryan earned a Law degree from the University of Limerick before working in the civil service, yet reading and writing was always a treasured passion of his; a passion he credits his parents for instilling in him. “I always knew writing was something that I should do. My parent’s house was always full of books and Christmas presents always consisted partially of books. There’s no other way to become a writer really.” While Ryan’s parents planted the initial seeds which spawned his love of reading, it was his wife who encouraged him to stop talking about writing a book and to actually put pen to paper. “My wife really could see that I had to write because, in a way, it was making me miserable not doing it – the fact that I was denying it and putting it away. She said ‘just do it and at least then you can say you’ve done it.’”
With Ryan’s two novels, The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December, being rejected 47 times, Ryan, well aware that the world of publishing is a fickle one, never allowed this rejection to dishearten him.
if I could do it and to see if I could construct a narrative from this device. It was going around in my head for a long time, not the actual subject matter, but the mechanics of it and how you would do it.
“I’d asked all of these people and I’d fully expected the books to be rejected. Funnily enough I was actually accepted by the very first publisher I ever wrote to in Lilliput [Press]; it just so happens that there was a three-year gap in me writing to Antony [Farrell] and him reading it. I sent off four or five letters at a time to publishers and I fully expected nearly all of them to say ‘no’.”
“I said to myself I better keep going because the sickness wasn’t there, the horrible nausea that I used to feel when I wrote wasn’t there, so I thought ‘OK, this is a good place to be for a writer.’”
Even after being picked up by Lilliput, Ryan expected low volume sales and low volume print runs. Yet it wasn’t just in sales that The Spinning Heart soared way above expectations as the novel was placed on the longlist of the esteemed Man Booker Prize, while also winning Irish Book of the Year and The Guardian First Book Award. What makes The Spinning Heart such an inviting read is the fact that it is told from the point of view of 21 different characters living in a small rural community during Ireland’s recent recession. Ryan’s reasoning behind choosing this narrative formation was more of a means of self-challenge than anything else. “I had this idea to write a novel in the polyphonic form. I wanted to see
Both The Spinning Heart and The Thing About December deal with themes of debt, greed and rural society and, although Ryan didn’t intend for The Spinning Heart to become known as ‘The Recession Novel’, he says that it made for a nice ‘hook’. Ryan’s rule for writing novels is based very much on his Irish contemporary Colum McCann’s notion of “starting with what you know but writing about what you don’t know.” “These books deal with people and situations and the speech patterns that I know. There are definitely parts of friends and family in the characters but I think, in some way, every fictional character is an imitation of the writer’s experience. “But I’ll write about things I don’t know. I don’t know how it feels to have lost a child or to be financially desperate. So it’s set in a village like the one I grew up in, the land I love. I love North Tipp and East Limerick.”
For Ryan, one of the most horrific effects of the Recession on Irish society has been the mass exodus of young people through emigration. “I hate to think of guys like me, young guys, heading off. There was a thing during the boom where people would head off to America or Australia for a bit of a laugh but now the tragedy of emigration is back full force and whole families have emigrated,” says Ryan in his earthy Tipperary tones. As our conversation comes to its expiration, Ryan returns to the idea of rejection, believing that as long as you are writing you’re on the right track: “My advice is to just write and not think about it too much; because when you aren’t engaged in the act of writing you’re not a writer.”
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High hopes as Patrick’s Day is paraded across Irish cinemas
Film Writer/Director Terry McMahon’s latest film, Patrick’s Day, is, in his own words, “about a young kid with mental health issues who goes to Dublin once a year with his mother for the St Patrick’s Day parade. On his 25th birthday, he gets separated from her and ends up going back to the hotel they’re staying in where he meets an older, suicidal air-hostess who plans to take her own life. Deciding she’ll be intimate with one more person – and anyone will do – she picks him, and the intimacy they experience changes the both of them.”
“The way I see it, Ireland is one huge mental hospital.”
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An intriguing concept to say the least, the inspiration for which comes partly from McMahon’s own experiences having previously worked in a psychiatric hospital. Having seen firsthand how mentally ill people were treated if they had “any aspirations towards intimacy,” McMahon wished to reflect that uncomfortable, yet relatively unknown reality in his film. Though certainly a delicate subject matter to put on film, the reception
Eoghan Scott catches up with Terry McMahon, director of the acclaimed release, Patrick’s Day. has, for the most part, been extremely positive from the mental health community. “We’ve had extraordinary responses from both sides of the diagnostic fence – those who’ve been doing the diagnosing and those who’ve been diagnosed themselves. Schizophrenia is such a contentious subject anyway, it’s obviously not going to be for everybody but we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response so far.” McMahon’s first film Charlie Casanova was a jet-black character study, delving deep into the psychologically disturbed mind of its sociopathic title character. Patrick’s Day offers a far more realistic take on the subject of mental illness but it does seem to establish that subject as something of a running theme in his work: “Well, in some ways Ireland is the biggest psychiatric hospital in the world,” responds McMahon. “We have people in three-piece suits telling us what we can and cannot do and destroying lives. The way I see it, Ireland is one huge mental hospital.” For an independent Irish production, McMahon has certainly managed to assemble a stellar cast for Patrick’s Day: “Probably the biggest name in the film is Kerry Fox (Shallow Grave, An Angel at My Table), a magnificent woman on every level. We also had Philip Jackson, an English actor who’s been around a long time and is quite well known, and
he was great.
to convince themselves they are men.”
“Mostly, though, the cast was made up of unknown Irish actors. For Moe Dunford, who plays Patrick, this was his very first film role and he absolutely trail-blazes his way across the screen.”
It’s a long journey from page to screen though and McMahon is well aware that there is no certainty whether his next film will see the light of day:
Buoyed by the positive response to the film, McMahon has no intention of sitting on his laurels once the hype has died down: “I’ve a script written for a third film, called Dancehall Bitch, which is to be a very dark prison drama. It’s about what men are prepared to do to convince themselves they are men – what men are prepared to do to women
“It’s all written and ready now but, of course, you need finances and funding to get things like this off the ground. “So I guess now all the madness begins again.” Patrick’s Day screens in selected cinemas now.
Film Review: Patrick’s Day Jordan Williams-Salter Following the protagonist Patrick through the trials of living with schizophrenia, Terry McMahon’s Patrick’s Day is a film which documents his attempts to simultaneously maintain a normal home-life, job and relationship. Stunningly portrayed by newcomer Moe Dunford, the character of Patrick is explored through an interesting and experimental narrative, land-marking his character’s progression through his birthday, which falls on St. Patrick’s Day. On one particular birthday Patrick is separated from his mother and encounters the elusive character of Karen (Catherine Walker), who is planning to commit suicide that very night.
The film examines the illness of schizophrenia itself, its symptoms and effects on the victim, creatively illuminating the reality of living with a mental illness. However the film also has a very moving and personal side, as the audience becomes emotionally drawn into the struggle being undertaken by Patrick and his inability to distinguish between reality and delusion, memory and imagination. Containing several unexpected twists and turns throughout the plot, the narrative remains loyal and sympathetic to Patrick in the face of the difficulty, betrayal and confusion he encounters The use of stylistic techniques is ever present throughout the film, with a constant shift in focus and blurred view, one which intends to create a first person narrative viewpoint but soon becomes
distracting and uncomfortable to the viewer. Yet the portrayal of confusion and lack of clarity is one which cleverly implicates the audience into the docile sense of confusion being experienced by the heavily medicated Patrick. Patrick’s mother Maura (Kerry Fox) represents the traditional Irish attitude towards mental illness in her attempt to control his every move, prevent him from living a normal life and to sweep it all under the carpet. Juxtaposed with the nonchalant and adventurous Karen,
who also suffers from depression, the two leading female characters portray strong opposing forces in relation to Patrick and his illness. With a strong sense of Irish culture and society running throughout the aptly titled Patrick’s Day, McMahon’s concoction could arguably be placed within the same genre as Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island, a rare achievement for the average Bórd Scannán production.
Soap and Glory Creator of TV3’s Red Rock, Peter McKenna, tells Claire Fox about launching into 21st century Soapland.
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Film
he characters feel like loved or loathed family members, we cry into our cushions when our crush leaves the show and stifle back gasps when the resident villain takes his enemies hostage. We never admit to watching them but the Irish public is infatuated with soap operas. With the Irish TV landscape being so crowded with soaps, from the home-grown Fair City, to imports like Eastenders, even the regular Joe Soap (no pun intended!) would be forgiven for thinking that creator and showrunner for TV3’s Red Rock, Peter McKenna, has a battle on his hands. But with Ireland’s third channel seeking to fill the Corrie-shaped void it ceded to UTV Ireland, McKenna felt he was the man for the task.
“We thought if soap hadn’t been invented, if there was no Coronation Street or Fair City, how would you do it? “We had the brief and I obviously drew on my own experiences and relationships and where I grew up,” says McKenna. “Although the characters are complete fabrications, some of them are vaguely based on stories I’d heard so that was a starting point. We decided then to create a show with two feuding families and the police caught in the middle.” While the concept of Red Rock is fresh and modern when compared to the long established Coronation Street or Eastenders, McKenna is the first to admit that the process of creating a soap from scratch was a daunting one. “In a drama you’ve got five or six main characters and you make two or three story lines that needs to be resolved in six or ten episodes, or something like that… The world is quite contained. But we had 80 hours to fill and having to create a premise that could sustain itself for 80 hours was slightly overwhelming.” With many critics comparing Red Rock
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to Love/Hate or The Bill, McKenna admits that while the show has many similarities to a drama, it is essentially an “improved soap.” “Honestly it’s a soap,” he exclaims. “Most of the existing soaps were created 20 years ago and they were based on the production models and technologies that were available at the time. So we thought if soap hadn’t been invented, if there was no Coronation Street or Fair City, how would you do it? “We decided we’d use the technologies that were available to us which are much more mobile. Other soaps have cameras on stands and sets but we don’t do that; we usually have hand-held cameras and GoPros which you just put on a car. We go out on location; we go driving. We just wanted to make it like real-life because a lot of soaps do feel like a construct; there’s a street and hardly anyone ever leaves it.” Perhaps that’s the advantage that Red Rock has over the long-established shows: the fact that it is flexible. For McKenna (who worked on both Eastenders and Casualty), other soaps are more like “huge machines” with “conveyor belts of writers.” “If you make a suggestion, they just say ‘we don’t do that on the show.’ We are
chaotic and manic and if somebody said we want to set something on the top of a hotel in Dublin, we would try and find ways to do that but you wouldn’t find that on other shows.” With Red Rock only given seven months to prepare itself for airing on television, the casting process, which should have been the most stressful part, was the most enjoyable and successful element to creating the show. “What we were keen on was that we would populate our world with very unfamiliar faces, so you wouldn’t be going ‘there’s your one from Glenroe.’ We wanted it to feel like a new, fresh world.” With TV3 having invested €7 million into this soap venture, McKenna feels the pressure to succeed is coming more from himself than from the broadcaster. “I feel a responsibility to the cast, crew and writers, who work in unglamorous buildings and work really hard. All of these people are buying into the show 100% and that’s where the pressure comes from and I don’t want to let these people down.” Having been the first Irish person appointed to the BBC Writer’s Academy in 2010, McKenna is quick to comment that Britain provides more of a career path for budding TV writers than Ireland. “In England, by the nature of
the population, there are much more TV writers over there. In some ways it’s more competitive but, in other ways, there’re much more shows to write on. “In Ireland there just isn’t the same amount of drama being made so you wouldn’t have the same progression as a TV writer. You can get a job on Fair City but where do you go from there? Stuart Carolan wrote every episode of Love/Hate!” Given that culture, McKenna’s entrance into the world of TV writing was anything but typical although he always had an ambition to write. “I was at boarding school from seven to 16 and being away from your family does take its toll. But the thing that got me through was reading books. I wanted to be a film writer but never did anything about it. I did a degree in business and marketing and ended up opening and working in an art gallery until I was 30. “But all during that time I was thinking ‘I want to be a writer.’ One day I was going to be a writer and write for TV and, at 30, that’s what I did.” Red Rock airs Wednesdays and Thursdays at 8.30 pm on TV3.
Art & Lit Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Emma Donoghue’s seventh novel, Room, draws inspiration from the infamous Josef Fritzl case in which a father imprisoned his daughter in his basement for over 20 years. Room tells the story of a young girl, Ma, who was abducted at 19 and has spent the last seven years in an escape-proof room. The work is narrated by Jack, Ma’s five-year-old son with her captor, who thinks that only the room is real.
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In this cold and claustrophobic setting, it is Jack and Ma’s relationship that lends the novel its human element, while also posing some disturbing questions. A poignant example of this is when the two stand on a table under the skylight to scream as loudly as they can. Jack, in his innocence, believes this is merely a part of the daily routine and a way to stretch their voices but the reader understands that Ma is hoping to be rescued. Moments such as this are heart-breaking but also force us to wonder whether Ma shelters Jack too much and if it is better to live in a lie or not.
Room instils more than panic in the reader Méabh Flanagan analyses the Booker-shortlisted Room. Surprisingly the novel’s climax takes place towards the halfway point, during which the slow build-up of tension pays off in an incredibly rendered escape sequence. However it is when the pair are safely outside that Donoghue falters for the first time. Doctors inform Jack that his clumsiness in the outside world is due to his undeveloped sense of spatial awareness. Unconsciously mirroring her child narrator, Donoghue stumbles through the second half. The denouement carries little to no emotional weight and the narration is stripped bare of the striking insights into Jack’s young mind that made the novel’s first half so compelling. With a film version set to hit our screens later this year, Room will be directed by Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did) with a screenplay by Donoghue herself. Room faces challenges from the outset. Many popular adaptations such as Game of Thrones choose to age child characters in order to ensure acting quality and to make their viewers more comfortable with violence. Yet the entire premise of Room is the balancing act between Jack’s
Long-lost Novel Molly Forsyth discusses the announcement of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, to be released in July.
childish innocence and horrific scenes of kidnapping, rape and imprisonment; so ageing him would defeat the novel’s whole purpose.
“The narration is stripped bare of the striking insights into Jack’s young mind that made the novel’s first half so compelling.”
Donoghue will need to take drastic creative liberties to ensure a successful transition to the big screen. In order to inject some much-needed drama into the lacking second half perhaps Old Nick, the captor, could escape arrest. Alternatively the film could delve deeper into the relationship between Jack and Old Nick, thereby providing a chilling subplot wherein Jack actually
loves Old Nick and sees him as a benevolent figure, ultimately refusing Ma’s pleas for escape when the time comes. Regardless of whether or not the adaption makes significant changes to Donoghue’s original plot, if it can resonate emotionally like Room does, then it’s bound to be a success.
announced its plans to publish Go Set a Watchman in July of this year. This ‘new’ novel is based on a recently recovered original manuscript recounting the experiences of a grown-up Scout Finch during a visit to her small Alabama hometown in the mid-fifties. Advised by her editor to rewrite the story from a child’s perspective, Harper Lee set about rewriting the text with the revised version released in 1960 under the title To Kill a Mockingbird. As Mockingbird went about collecting accolades and making history, Lee’s initial manuscript was quietly hidden away and forgotten about in a safe-deposit box.
the book at a young age will remember it as an introduction to the harsh social, legal and political reality of racism in the American South. Now, half a century onwards, the Watchman, a prequel, will offer readers an opportunity to reflect on how much or how little things have changed in the States since 1960.
Although not due to hit the shelves for another five months, readers can preorder Go Set a Watchman on Amazon. Having immediately shot to the top of the Amazon Bestseller List, with Mockingbird at second place, it’s clear that this is set to be the biggest release of 2015.
To say that Harper Lee’s follow-up to To Kill a Mockingbird is long-awaited is a colossal understatement. In the 55 years since its 1960 publication, Lee’s first and only novel has sold an estimated 40 million copies worldwide, been adapted
into a classic film and frequently tops reader’s polls. Yet, in spite of the novel’s enormous success, Harper Lee never wrote another book... or so we thought. In
early
February
HarperCollins
Cherished for its lyrical prose style, complex characters and gripping narrative, Mockingbird is one of those rare novels that manage to cross generational, social and geographical divides. Although it’s an ingrained fixture of many school curriculums (something which usually spells doom for a novel), Lee’s book remains a muchloved text. Indeed, those of us who read
But how does woman-of-the-moment, the 88 year-old Harper Lee, feel about the whole thing? In a rare public statement, she declared: “I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions.”
Radioheads: Serial and the Rise of Podcasting Molly Forsythe investigates the newfound success of the wireless arts. It’s hard to believe that the now ubiquitous podcast has only been with us for a meagre ten years. Emerging in 2004, the podcast has been going from strength to strength over the past decade. Last year Apple reported that subscriptions to podcasts through iTunes reached one billion, making the simple podcast an ever-growing craft.
“Much like the ‘Who shot JR?’ controversy of 1980, the question on everybody’s lips in 2015 is: ‘Did Adnan really do it?’” A newcomer to podcasts myself, I only started listening to them this year as an alternative to the increasingly homogeneous sounds of Irish radio.
With an enormous range of shows to choose from, podcasts offer something for everyone - comedy (The Ricky Gervais Show), educational resources (Radiolab), storytelling (The Moth), interviews (WTF with Marc Maron) or sport (Second Captains). Whereas radio shows often have to cut off conversations just as they begin to get tantalisingly juicy, podcasts have the luxury of length, meaning that discussions have the scope to deal with a topic in depth. And, of course, there’s the convenience of being able to choose when and how you tune in. With five million downloads (and counting) on iTunes, the surprise runaway success of Serial this year has marked a new era in the development and popularity of the form. Serial investigates the murder of teenager Hae-Min Lee by her boyfriend Adnan Syed in Baltimore, 1999. In each episode Sarah Koenig and her team explore a different element of the case – Syed’s alibi, the time frame, the discovery
of the body, etc. – in order to piece together what really happened between three and four o’clock on January 13th. Koenig’s This American Life spinoff has demonstrated how a medium that was once regarded as niche now has the ability to engage a vast global audience. Much like the ‘Who shot JR?’ controversy of 1980, the question on everybody’s lips in 2015 is: ‘Did Adnan really do it?’ So why is it that Serial has experienced such breath-taking success? Sarah Koenig claims the key lies in the deceivingly simple idea of serialising. In an interview with The Guardian, she asserts that the idea “is as old as Dickens,” referring to Charles Dickens’s serialised story, The Pickwick Papers, which caused a worldwide sensation in the mid-1800s. Well researched and thoroughly professional, Serial really is the crèmede-la-crème of podcasts. Yet, despite this, I found myself giving up after four episodes, nauseated by the media
Welcome to Night Vale thoughtful and stereotype-smashing portrayal of the romance between Cecil and Carlos.
Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast about a fictional town set in an American desert. Created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor in 2012, the podcast is available for free download on iTunes. Night Vale has also created a YouTube channel for fans to enjoy readier access to the material.
At a live show in Dublin’s Sugar Club last October, Cecil’s sonorous voice combined with the sharp writing ensured a rapturous reception from the podcast’s devotees. The performance also featured musician Mary Epworth and the ambient group Disparition, who supplied atmospheric music and sound effects (or the ‘weather’ as is termed by the show’s creators).
Related to listeners through protagonist Cecil Palmer’s radio show, Night Vale is a town ruled by chance, paranoia and the uncanny. The show is filled with fascinating characters such as Hiram McDaniels – a five-headed dragon, the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home, as well as a constant stream of interns for Cecil’s Night Vale Radio. Presented with its characteristic surrealist wit, Night Vale provides a hilarious depiction of small town living in a place where “all the conspiracy theories were real.” Whilst the preoccupation with the weird is undoubtedly a factor in Night Vale’s rising popularity, the show has also gained much support for its
The enormous success of the Dublin shows came as no great surprise due to the podcast’s ever-expanding fan base. The show is particularly popular on Tumblr where fan art and general enthusiasm for all things Night Vale abound. Indeed, in 2013 Night Vale was the most downloaded podcast on iTunes. With a sharp sense of irony, dramatic storyline, original characters and love of the bizarre, Welcome to Night Vale is fast on its way to becoming a much-loved institution of internet culture.
circus and wild speculation that had grown up around the very real and very tragic death of a girl not much younger than myself. Although, I must add that this says more about the tastes of the audience than the production team. There’s no doubt that podcasts will continue to grow as this digital age progresses. So whatever its failings may be, Serial must be commended for bringing this medium to the mainstream and its success signals an exciting future for the podcasting world.
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Matty Adams investigates the rising star of the podcast world. “If it looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck... you should not be so quick to jump to conclusions.”
Art & Lit
Listen to the Podcasts @ http://podbay.fm/show/536258179
Breathing Space Robbie Byrne talks to Kodaline stickman Vinny May about the industry’s false friends, expanding their sonic canvas and finding refuge in their latest album, Coming Up For Air.
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mbivalence reigned when mates raved about Kodaline. Sure, their debut propelled the Dublin quartet to the apex of the Irish and UK album charts, while the singles it spawned were perfectly acceptable radio-conscious exercises, but something was missing. It was a recent chat with Ireland’s hardest working musician, Billy McGuinness of Aslan, which put an end to all this doubt. Gone were assumptions of a band cobbled together by record company bigwigs. Lost were preconceptions of tailor-made singles assembled by focus groups. Kodaline got to where they were through talent and sheer graft. Nothing more, nothing less. “We learned lot of lessons very fast,” begins Kodaline drummer Vinny May. “Mark and I were 15 while Steve was 16. Looking back, we were too young.” May is alluding to the band’s previous guise as 21 Demands, whose pop-rock covers earned them a semi-final spot in RTÉ’s shameless X-Factor rip-off You’re A Star.
“People will tell you things to make you feel good. They’ll promise you the sun, moon and stars. We took it all to heart but we’ve learned to take these things with a pinch of salt. If something isn’t right, don’t do it. Just follow your gut,” says May. It’s sentiment hinted at in their latest album, where Steve Garrigan sings, “You gotta be tough if you want to survive/ They’ll cheer you up then they’ll eat you alive.”
It’s clear that the trio who went on to form Kodaline were burnt, but May doesn’t care to elaborate: “We didn’t do great Leaving Certs because of the television commitments. But having said all that, being caught in the moment was some buzz.”
“They’ll promise you the sun, moon and stars. We took it all to heart but we’ve learned to take these things with a pinch of salt.”
Less than twelve months into changing tack, Kodaline had inked a deal with Sony UK. “We weren’t one of those bands copped by a top PR guy in some shitty pub. We had a different approach to a lot of Irish bands – Kodaline had no fanbase to speak of until that day,” May says. The reasoning behind signing for a UK label was propelled by a need to expose their art to a larger audience, avoiding the long jinxed ‘Irish bubble’. “A lot of bands here fall into the trap of hearing themselves on Irish radio and thinking they’ve hit the big time. But in Ireland we’ve only four million people, while there’s 64 million in the UK. The maths doesn’t add up.
A four-year fast-forward reveals a different aesthetic. Lacking a record contract and minus bassist Conor Linnane, a newly renamed Kodaline found themselves at their lowest ebb: “We ended up working crazy hours in these shitty jobs to fund studio time. We didn’t even have a gig scene. The only thing we did was record demos and send them on to every record company we could think of.”
“Some guys are happy with this but, for us – for us it was always about the bigger picture.” It’s a different approach, one that spurred the band’s success, despite some Irish cries of disloyalty.
With the band’s TV exposure long forgotten, May explains that a fresh approach was critical. “We had to change our name. We were different people to the kids that jammed as 21 Demands. We had all grown up; we all had experienced real life. The change forced us to focus on song writing. Improving our art became the breaker.”
“We are a selfish band,” May explains, “you’re never going to please everybody and you certainly won’t please all the critics. Reviews are important but a sold-out show will outweigh a bad review any day. Reviews, good and bad, can twist your view of things. It’s good to live in a bubble when on the road, so critic’s opinions never reach us.”
Despite the sales success of their debut LP A Perfect World, some critics tore their Coldplay-aping indie balladry to shreds. So did this create uncertainty when crafting a follow-up?
It’s a wise move, one that shapes the band’s loose approach to songcraft. “We don’t have an exact song-writing formula. Sometimes songs start with the four of us fucking about in a room. Now and again Steve and Mark would have an idea and then the rest of us would foster it by adding our own layers. “With this album, most of it was done through jamming things out – 80% was written in the studio; the rest were sketches we wrote while on the road,” adds May. Even a brief listen to Kodaline’s second LP Coming Up For Air confirms the band’s nonchalant approach to composition. Each track has its own insular character: whether it’s the stadium ready ‘Human Again’ or the forlorn intimacy of ‘The One’. It’s a rubric that remains consistent with their debut; just with some added meat and a splash of garnish. Talking about songcraft brings our conversation onto Coming Up For Air’s recording process. Produced and partially recorded in California by sonic mastermind Jacknife Lee, a man who can stamp his pseudonym on records by R.E.M., U2 and Biffy Clyro; the Irish born producer’s foremost role was to get Kodaline’s creative juices flowing once again. “Going over to Jacknife was an experiment,” May says. “We hadn’t started writing for the album – Jesus, we didn’t even think we were going to record anything with him – but we
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landed in Ireland a week later with two tracks, one of which was the lead single, ‘Honest’.” May’s admiration for the producer is obvious as he continues to heap on the praise in thick, loving, awestruck chunks: “He’s like a music encyclopaedia. He’d get you to try out a sound and, I’m telling you, there was a lot we were really unsure about, but he’d just list off the records he tried something similar on and how well it worked. “Jacknife took us right out of our comfort zone. He transformed the way we worked in the studio; he sped up the whole writing process while creating exciting new channels for our sound. It’s testament to his success.” Three months later, Kodaline returned to California once again to work with Jacknife. While several tracks were laid down for the album, May explains that working with Jacknife alone wasn’t enough; more diverse sounds were needed to fabricate an increasingly ambitious sophomore effort. “As it progressed we wanted an increasingly more diverse and challenging record, so we decided to record what is basically the other half
of the record in Dublin, Leitrim and London.”
“We weren’t one of those bands copped by a top PR guy in some shitty pub. We had a different approach to a lot of Irish bands – Kodaline had no fanbase to speak of until that day,” The counterbalance for Jacknife’s meaty production would come from one of pop music’s most respected figures: “One track was produced by Jim Eliot; he’s an out and out pop music producer who worked with the likes of Ellie Goulding and Drake. It’s probably the most pop thing we’ve done.” Mentioning one of the album’s strongest tracks, ‘Love Will Set You Free’, forces a smile from the Kodaline drummer. “‘Love Will Set You Free’ was almost
the one that got away. The album was in the bag but we had this melody that we’d bang out for a few minutes before going into the recording room. Me and the lads went back to Johnny [McDaid] who we worked with on our first album. Within a few hours we had it. Though we had to rework the whole album to shoehorn it in, it was totally worth it.” And they were right. A sugary blend of gentle fretwork and uplifting lyricism serve as the perfect end to a brilliantly diverse album. There’s little doubting Kodaline’s ambition but will a new sound shock fans back into welcoming arms of ‘Viva la Vida’? “Who knows?” answers May. “We could scare some fans away. It’s a departure from the first record, a significant expansion of our sound. We didn’t want it to sound like our debut. We’re better musicians – not great ones, but certainly better. We knew we had to evolve with our second and I feel we’ve done exactly that.” As our conversation winds down, May looks to the future, embracing the twelve months of touring and publicity that lie ahead: “We are extremely fortunate. We have the privilege of playing in the most amazing locations.
We’ve been practicing the new material over the past few weeks and it really is giving our old material a new lease of life. We’re raring to go.” Kodaline’s Second LP Coming Up For Air is available now. They play Cork’s Live at the Marquee on June 25th.
Making waves across the Pond Robbie Byrne talks to Pond guitarist and Tame Impala associate Joe Ryan about sparking the Australian psychedelic renaissance, drug culture and Irish roots. We all missed the boat at this year’s Grammy Awards. While Prince’s remark that “like books and black lives, albums still matter” sent reverberations across political spheres, its chief call to reignite our passion for the album format fell on deaf ears. Given the context, name-dropping Prince may seem out of place but stay with me and the logic will come clear. You see, Pond have always played in the shadow of their more glamorous sister Tame Impala. Pond will never scalp a rock hit. Go ahead, choose a track of theirs and see if it sticks in the mind at first listen. Impossible.
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But Pond’s existence justifies the saviour of the album. A wall of warm, beautifully twisted neon odysseys, the band’s latest LP carries you to alternate dimensions. A sonic hallucinogenic, Man It Feels Like Again can only be created by people allegedly extinct – the characters, the mavericks. ”I’m in Perth now man,” begins Pond guitarist Joe Ryan. “I was living in Melbourne since Tame Impala started but I’m back at home for a bit, just catching up with friends and family before we start Pond’s European tour, which begins in Dublin.” There’s an unsettling familiarity to Ryan’s accent; perhaps it’s the endless repeats of Home and Away I’ve sat through but, before I catch his Irish lilt in full flow, he cuts in: “I was actually born in Nenagh; both of my parents are Irish. We moved over here when I was six and half so I never really shook off the accent,” Ryan says before laughing, “Yeah, us Irish are causing a bit of mayhem over here, ah sure, it’s just a bit of craic really - you can’t blame them for having a laugh.” Pond have had two weeks to absorb the phenomenal critical response of their latest LP but Ryan is taking it all in his stride; “Well, I only heard from mam that the reviews have been positive. I try to stay away from critics and the likes.” Looking back to the band’s early days sees Ryan drawing parallels with the equally tongue in cheek Spinal Tap. “We used to be more of jam band, friends would come over to our house and just play out these long tracks.” Though
fun, he explains that it was a largely unprogressive time for the band, “It just got a bit wearing to be teaching friends how to play instruments a certain way to achieve the sound we wanted.”
“I wouldn’t say drugs and creativity go hand in hand.” While jamming with some mates may sound inconspicuous, it was the spark that ignited Australia’s psychedelic renaissance. “The funny thing is that we all lived under the same roof. I mean everyone who is big in the Perth psych scene today lived together at one point.” So what’s responsible for the outlandish sonic textures championed by band’s like Pond? “Perth is in the arsehole of nowhere, the closest city is in Indonesia – there’s fuck all to do here. I put the uniqueness and creativity of the whole scene down to our isolation.” As Ryan grabs a beer from the fridge, we talk about the creation of Man it
Feels Like Space Again, a process that one magazine stated was “cooked up while high on consumables.” Given the nature of Pond’s scene, it’s a claim the guitarist is accustomed to. “All of us have been down that road when we were young and I guess it changes some part of your brain. Would we be able to make the same music today without trying drugs in the past? I don’t know but I wouldn’t say drugs and creativity go hand in hand.” “Our songwriting process became more defined when we stopped rotating the line-up,” he explains. “I think most of our shifts in sound are spontaneous but consciously we are always pushing boundaries, moving further into uncharted territory; we want to create sounds that nobody has heard. “ The pace at which the Perth trio fashion their sound is astonishing. Restricted by other commitments, Ryan explains that their latest work was written before their previous LP Hobo Rocket: “We had just finished our Beard, Wives, Denim European tour and ‘Impala’s Lonerism was coming out so we only had four days to record. I figured the songs we had written needed a bit more nourishing, so we completed Hobo Rocket instead and waited for a two-week window for It Feels Like Space.”
While it seems like a comically short amount of time to prep an album so dense, Ryan’s logic was simple: “Man, you have no idea how easily we get bored.” Before our time runs out, I’m keen to hear about how Pond’s fantastically dense sound will translate into the intimate surrounding of Whelan’s. Ryan’s view is refreshingly frank. “Since we lost our bass player I was really shitting myself about that. Though we played at Laneway Festival last week and I thought we killed it. Studio sounds and live stuff never really sound the same, but I think we’ve come pretty close.” It’s irony in full flow. A bunch of guys who were once described by their frontman “as the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll cliché” now carry the torch for the once beloved album. Who could have guessed that a dash of experimentation and a splash of eccentricity were the missing ingredients? Pond play Whelan’s Dublin February 19th.
Insta-Grammys Claire Fox gives her take on the greatest annual music event that is the Grammys. With every award season synonymous for celebrating cinematic events from the highly esteemed BAFTAs to the world renowned Oscars, it would be easy for the Grammys, the world’s most prestigious music awards, to feel outnumbered. But the advantages that the Grammys hold over these other pretentious awards is that they welcome artists from all different genres and all different parts of the world to play a part in their ceremony. So while other events comply to the regular awardceremony conventions, the Grammys have a history of incorporating both the quirky and the quintessentially brilliant into their show, and 2015 was no different. British singing sensation, Sam Smith, who was virtually an unknown Stateside until last year owned the Awards, scooping up four trophies including, Best Song of the Year for ‘Stay with Me’ and Best Pop Vocal Album for his similarly titled debut effort. His sheer surprise at his success was evident in his duet with American songstress, Mary J Blige as his smooth falsetto tones mesmerised the audience.
Other note-worthy winners on the night included American singer, Beck whose alternative mixture of both funk and folk for Morning Phase won him Best Album of the Year. While this moment was nearly upstaged by Kanye West’s efforts to re-create his heist of the stage during the 2009 VMA awards declaring that Beyoncé “should have won,” both the audience and Beck took this playful act of West’s with a pinch of salt. However Beyoncé didn’t leave emptyhanded, picking up an award for Best R&B performance for her collaboration with husband Jay Z on ‘Drunk in Love. Clean Bandit and Jesse Glynne’s eclectic mix of electronic and orchestral sounds earned them a much deserved win in the Best Dance Recording category for the most over-played track of the year, ‘Rather Be’.
more of a Phantom of the Opera type chorus than the rendition we have become accustomed to.
The original and outlandish outfits donned by stars on the redcarpet were reflected in the diverse performances of the night. Madonna showcased her latest anthem ‘Living for Love’ surrounded by a stage-full of bullhorned wearing dancers, while Pharrell’s dramatic performance of his hit tune ‘Happy’ at times resembled
On the more subtle side of the performance spectrum, Beyoncé staged a paired-back, yet passionate presentation of ‘Take My Hand Precious Lord’. Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran jammed with John Mayer to his love-song ‘Thinking Out Loud’, in a particularly memorable fashion. Performance of the night however goes to the unusual
Music
combination of Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney, in their slick acoustic song ‘Four Five Seconds’, showing off Rihanna and West’s vocal capabilities and McCartney’s signature strumming style. And while Irish singer-songwriter Hozier may have lost out to Sam Smith in the Best New Artist category, his soulful duet of ‘Take Me to Church’ with Annie Lennox surely simmered away any strands of disappointment for the Irishman.
Album Review: What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World Ryan O’Neill listens to The Decemberists’ latest release. An accomplished and versatile songwriter, Colin Meloy and his band The Decemberists have flitted through various genre experiments over the years, charging along pathways of progrock, folk and, on their most recent effort, 2009’s ‘The King Is Dead’ Americana. Therefore, it’s refreshing to hear something looser and less focused than the Japanese folk tales and Marcel Duchamp works that The Decemberists have based their musical output on in the past. Philomena is an innocent, poppy number, jiving playfully amid Barbara Lewis-esque “ooh-aah”s. Meloy displays a lighter, more juvenile side than that for which he has traditionally been known, confessing “all that I wanted in the world/was just to live to see a naked girl/ but I found I quickly bored”. Shockingly, he makes sickly sweetness work rather well.
Make You Better, the album’s lead single, has a melancholy edge akin to fellow Americans Death Cab For Cutie, with Meloy placing faith and pressure in his muse, singing “I wanted you, I needed you/to make me better” in a heartfelt track that will perhaps help The Decemberists pick up a few more casual listeners. While the band have adopted a more straight-edged rock style for their seventh record, heartbreak and worry still pervade the album’s fourteen tracks. The Wrong Year bemoans a complicated love story - “and she wants you but you won’t do/and it won’t leave you alone”, while A Beginning Song bookends the album beautifully – culminating in a wistful crescendo of intertwining guitar, piano and violin.
favoured history-infused subject matter. Lake Song is an ode to teenage confusion that doesn’t really materialise into anything significant, while the sequence of short country tracks towards its close leave the LP feeling slightly over-inflated.
The album also retains core elements of The Decemberists’ folk roots and
Nevertheless, ‘What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World’s’
ultimate success lies in its simple, straightforward approach. Given Colin Meloy’s fondness for experimentation though, we will likely see yet another artistic shift for the next addition to The Decemberists’ oeuvre. For now, we are treated to a far less esoteric and more personal record from Portland’s finest.
Rating: B
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Game of the Year
Gaming
Gaming reviewers pick out their top-picks from the year gone by.
Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Aoife Gleeson Danganronpa is pretty strange. Here’s the premise: You play as a student who’s attending his first year at Hope’s Peak Academy, which only takes students that are the best in their field, known as ‘Ultimates’. The game starts with you entering the school on your first day. Then, you pass out and wake up blockaded in the school with 14 other students. A psychotic animatronic bear shows up and informs you that, in order to escape, you’re going to have to kill one of your fellow students. Things get weirder.
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On top of the whole murdering thing, there’s a further caveat: you can’t get caught by your fellow students. Following a murder, there will be a trial: if the students figure out correctly who committed the murder, said murderer will be executed. If they get away clean, they’ll be released from the school and everyone else will be executed. While all the students initially assure each other that they can all get along, it’s not long before cabin fever and panic set in.
Your job is to investigate and uncover the culprit of each subsequent murder, while simultaneously trying to keep the peace and figure out who locked you in there in the first place.
Danganronpa tells a great story. If anyone has played Phoenix Wright, think of it as an adult version. The murders are well written and orchestrated, and the ‘trial’ sections are the most thrilling and engaging parts of the game. The cast is diverse and interesting, with equal parts, sympathetic characters and evil, bad seeds. You’ll be upset when some are killed off and rejoice when others are gone. Most importantly, you’ll be engrossed in the world that Danganronpa presents to you. While many flashier games have come out this year, most won’t leave the same impression that Danganronpa does. It’s super weird and thoroughly idiosyncratic, but that’s what makes it so memorable.
Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition Brian Conmy While Diablo 3 originally launched on PC in 2012, its expansion and port to the current gen systems was not released until 2014. While some may say that choosing a port or expansion to an older game as my personal game of 2014 is a cheat, what makes the Ultimate Evil Edition so special is how much it changes things up from the original launch version of the game. Firstly, it removes the awful need for an always online connection to run the game that the PC version originally had. This connection was a supposed necessity to enable the real money auction house Diablo 3 featured which has also been done away with. Removing the ability to use real money to buy gear in game has meant that the gear system has been redone and rebalanced as well as expanded with new content for the extra chapter the
Ultimate Evil Edition also has. This also means new levels, enemies and an array of features that build upon an already feature rich experience. Diablo has always been a game of repetitive grinding for experience, gold and better gear and while this isn’t for everyone it hits a certain part of my brain which drives me on and on to reach the next level and get that shiny new legendary crossbow. This isn’t my first Diablo game but it’s certainly the first one to suck me in as far as it has, I already have a max level Demon Hunter and plan to continue on with her until she’s the best character she can possibly be. Or until the Borderlands Handsome Collection comes out on PS4 and I get far too sucked into that, whichever comes first. Man I have a problem with loot drop games don’t I…
Dragon Age: Inquisition Steve Barry When looking back on 2014, there is only one game that sticks in my mind. In a year of games that were subpar, broken and overall uninspired, Bioware’s third entry in the Dragon Age franchise, Inquisition, stands out as a fantastic new member of what I would consider my own Role-Playing Game Hall of Fame. Inquistion has thoroughly taken up all of my free time, in between college, work and…hunting Amiibo, but that’s been covered before. It’s enthralling, complex and quite sprawling narrative captured my attention completely. It tells the tale of an unassuming Elf, Human, Dwarf or Qunari being wrapped up in a mystical and religious conspiracy, with parallels to modern day fanaticism and extremism. Taking you by the hand and guiding you through building an army that worships you as a prophet, watching and influencing political conspiracies as they unfold, but ultimately engaging
you in a fantasy world that you will lose hours to. But beyond the story and the beautifully crafted world that it is set in, the most incredible part of Inquisition is the cast of characters that pop in and out of the narrative. While previously minor characters cement themselves as much larger parts of the history of Dragon Age, the true stars are the newcomers. While I would love to have the word count to walk you through each of them, I’ll cover my favourite: The Iron Bull. I won’t spoil who or what he is, but his character represents exactly what I want to see in games. He is a thorough and unrelenting representation of a community that is under-represented in gaming, and also introduces what I believe is the first major transgender character in triple A gaming. So that’s my Game of the Year in a nutshell, Dragon Age: Inquisition. I encourage you to pick it up if you get the chance, you won’t be disappointed.
inFamous: Second Son Ian Twohig
To be completely honest, inFamous: Second Son was my first venture into the inFamous franchise. I’ve been told without end about the previous entries featuring the so-called Electric Man, Cole MacGrath, but to me, Second Son will always be my seminal superhero experience on my Playstation 4. From its great (Yet short) story, fantastic voice acting motion capture, as well as its beautiful representation of the city of Seattle, I have yet to have a gaming experience on my new console that stands up to this game in visuals, gameplay or anything else. In my opinion, a game world is best
judged from the perspective of whether you want to live there or not. Setting aside my previous inclinations towards the state of Washington, Second Son, despite the military occupation and rampant terrorism, really endeared the city of Seattle to me. From its stunning (And for some reason, drug-haul storing houseboat filled) marinas, to the top of the Seattle Space Needle, it is the best means of experiencing the developer, Sucker Punch’s, hometown outside of actually visiting. I think that’s testament enough to how well the team did in representing the beautiful, and rainy, city. Beyond that, this game truly cemented Troy Baker as a star in the voice acting
world for me. While he was fantastic as Joel in The Last of Us, his role as Delsin Rowe in Second Son really showed his versatility, in playing the good and bad sides of a hero’s origin story, dependent on the choices you make. Plus, I don’t know what sort of technology Sucker Punch used for their motion capture, but the resemblance between Troy and Delsin is uncanny valley quality.
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inFamous: Second Son was one of my first experiences on the new consoles that I would truly say could not have been done on the last generation of consoles. And for that reason, it is my Game of the Year, and I would recommend it to anyone.
Transistor Jonathan Soltan
and impersonal.
Back when Transistor released in May, I loved it. It was just the right length and had a combat system that made me feel far smarter than I am. It’s also an important game for the developers, Supergiant Games, as it proves that their first game, Bastion, wasn’t just some fluke. While the two games definitely share similarities, they’re more like cousins than brother and sister. Transistor keeps the hand-drawn art style of Bastion but the aesthetic is totally different. Where Bastion uses bright, vibrant colours, Transistor uses greys and dark blues. And while the environments of Bastion feel warm and alive, the city of Cloudbank feels cold
The gameplay is worlds apart, too. Bastion was all about mobility and quick strikes and rolls. Transistor does feature real-time gameplay, but the real combat comes in the form of a psuedoturn-based tactics style battle system. Using the different abilities you accrue throughout the game you can craft a loadout to suit your preferred playstyle in a surprisingly deep system that I won’t spoil for you here. The game also features the best last boss battle I’ve seen in a long time. It throws a totally unique situation at you and really forces you to adapt or perish. Of course, I can’t talk about Transistor
without talking about the amazing soundtrack. Bastion featured one of the best soundtracks in recent memory but, in my opinion, Darren Korb has bested himself with this one. Not only is the music more varied this time around but it features not one, not two, but FIVE tracks featuring the beautiful voice of Ashley Barrett who knocks it out of the park on all tracks. The game also has a dedicated “hum” button where you can listen to Red, the protagonist, hum along to whatever song is playing at that time. And the best part is that all of this can be yours for the amazing price of “free” if you’re subscribed to PS Plus this month. Download it now!
Living it up in the City
Fashion
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ith Paris Couture Week having closed its colourful catwalk for yet another term and London fashion week fast approaching, those who don’t eat and breathe fashion would be forgiven for thinking that it is merely a concept reserved for the runways of the world. But of course, those of us who don’t just see fashion as a way of life but life itself, know better. As the Queen of classic couture, Coco Chanel once put it “fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live and what is happening”Decades on, this declaration still aptly describes our relationship with style. Fashion runs through the veins of society; finding its origins in popular culture with the result presented on the pavements and park benches of the world on a daily basis, from New York to Newbridge. This form of fashion, which is hardly ever written about, but displayed to us through images varying from the candid to illustrious, is known as Street Style.
While social media sites, such as Pinterest and Instagram, may have pushed the concept of Street Style into the public sphere, it is far from a new phenomenon. Since the invention of the camera in the 19th Century, Street Style has been at the very core of fashion. Women in the late 1800s were just as infatuated with the idea of posing for picture after picture as we are today for pulling ‘duck faces’ and showing off our outfit swag. Continuing into the 1950s, rival magazines, Vogue and Harper’s Bazar, dedicated their glossy pages to the street savvy. These remarkable
Claire Fox discusses Street style, a concept often captured in a picture, yet rarely written about. monochromatic images, featuring men in dapper suits and women in preppy poodle skirts, allow us to gain a glimpse of the fashion of our ancestors and demonstrates the importance of street style in understanding the development of modern culture. Although these black and white photographs are endearing in tracking the evolution of fashion, the subjects generally posed for these images for a considerable length of time, taking away from their authenticity. This is where Bill Cunningham comes in. Celebrated fashion photographer, Cunningham came to prominence during the 1970s for his capturing of honest and original images of sidewalk style, as pedestrians went about their daily lives. Unlike the stilted images of the past, Cunningham had the unique ability to take candid images, in casual situations, yet proving that street style was anything but casual. Anna Wintour once stated that “we all get dressed for Bill,” indicating how Cunningham and his brand of street style photography has been as influential as having a front row seat at any couture show. Perhaps, Cunningham’s greatest achievement has been that he demonstrated to the world that anywhere has the ability to be a fashion capital and that being chic isn’t confined to the bustling boulevards of Paris. The funky fashion of Manhattan’s morning commuters is different to the understated brogue wearing French, but just as worthy. New York street style, although ever-changing, ranges from the preppy Upper-East side Gossip Girl generation, to the Brooklyn hipsters who team sleek trainers with over-sized jumper dresses while still managing to look immaculate. London street style, which is giving its French and Stateside counterparts much needed competition in their titles as fashion capitals, also has its own unique look. Since the swinging sixties, London has attracted the youthful and fresh fashionistas of the world. From Twiggy and her signature eyebrow flick, to Georgia May Jagger’s gap-grin, Londoner’s have provided us with a vast collection of style inspiration. While Street Style is most prominent in the smog-infested cities of the world, its influence can also be seen in smaller urban centres. Edinburgh, Dublin, even Cork are fast becoming hubs for quirky, fashion conscious trendsetters.
And it’s not only the high end fashion magazines which document Street Style; most newspapers, not forgetting Verge, dedicate their print space to footpath fashion lovers. Is it any surprise then that most of fashion’s popular trends have had their origins on city streets rather than in the style houses of London or Paris? Diego Zuko, photographer for Harper’s Bazar, has noted that the recent trend of tasselled kimonos and fringed cloaks, found its beginnings on the streets of New York. Moreover, the variety of clothing sold in highstreet stores such as Topshop and River Island, along with quirky items in vintage outlets, allows for the mixing of old and new trends, and the creation of revolutionary looks. Skinny jeans, choke-chains and tartan all have Street Style to thank for their main-stream fashion popularity. And it’s not just the cities that influence our
daily attire, the strong waistcoats and shiny leather riding boots preferred by country dwellers have given way to the Heritage look. Perhaps the biggest threat to street style is that everyone claims to be a hipster these days. Originality is harder to find and the obscure images of Bill Cunningham are more difficult to capture. But is anybody really original? Every single one of us is influenced by popular culture from Taylor Swift to Leonardo di Caprio whether we like it or not. That is how trends take off and that is, after all, what fashion is about! Fashion is about people, faces, situations, past, present and future. Street Style is an embodiment of what fashion actually is; a means of expression, a manner in which we can make our dark days a little brighter by wearing that luminous hat. Long live Street Style!
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lexa Chung. Cliché style icon number 1.
ohnny Depp. The coolest man in the universe. Full Stop.
lake Lively. Gucci’s darling blends sun-kissed bohemian with New York City bourgeois to make her fashion mark.
eira Knightley. Whether opting for high-fashion or old-fashioned, Chanel’s girl loves feminine looks on the red carpet.
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yan Gosling. Slick, smart, smooth.
Emma Stone. Her fondness for bold shades, striking cuts and challenging the conventions of an event’s dress code loan Stone an impressive set of style credentials.
ily Collins. This rising actress boasts the ability to wear thigh-high boots and still look sophisticated. Now, that’s a gift!
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Jamie Foxx. The Oscar winner who demonstrates a dual fondness for classic debonair and urban swagger.
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ara Delevingne. Personifying modern British style, the top-model mixes grunge with urban. She represents the evolution of the ‘London look’ with her statement t-shirts, colourful patterns and denim.
Andrew Garfield. This Brit’s style exhibits the integration of his most famous character and his own personal background. He can be courageous like Spiderman in a bright red tux, ordinary like Peter Parker in a hoody and jeans, or, he can channel his Surrey roots by being a posh gent in a chunky knit or beige trench coat.
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avid Bowie. The maestro who made the fusion of fashion and music an art form. From eclectic suits to gender bending, style was perhaps the architect of his unique stage persona.
Kate Moss. With over 20 years of experience in a style icon role, it’s no surprise that the ‘last Supermodel’ possesses a versatile taste in fashion. While she has meandered out of grunge, into glamour, over to rock-chic and back to bohemian, she always stimulates style envy.
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Lupita Nyong’o. From capes to colours, this Kenyan actress emerged suddenly to rule the red carpet during last year’s award season.
arry Styles. Winning the British Style Award in 2013, which “recognises an individual who most embodies the spirit of London and is an international ambassador for London as a leading creative fashion capital”, the boyband member’s present look channels rockstar flair with skin-tight jeans, loose, open shirts and an arsenal of accessories.
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mma Watson. Adding a sprinkle of elegance to cutting edge style shows us that Emma’s intellect stretches into her fashion sense too.
ggy Azalea. Exemplifying how one can pull off bold colours and tribal prints flawlessly without a tan, the rapper is rapidly garnering a reputation for her fashion audacity.
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aylor Momsen vs. Taylor Swift. Fishnets and leather jackets versus cute skirts and ballet pumps. It’s a matter of personal perspective really.
livia Palermo. Cliché style icon number 2.
rincess Diana. Being a member of the Royal family is fairly restricting on a lady’s choice of clothes, but Princess Di managed to reflect a contemporary sense of popular fashion regardless.
ueen of Pop Madonna. With a different look to accompany each new album, she’s done it all: tutus, cone bras, wedding dresses, oversized suits, cowboy hats, leotards etc
sher. The R&B star provides men with a visual guide on how to make baggy jeans and runners look suave.
ictoria Beckham. The lady responsible for the majority of the mid-noughties’ defining trends, including oversize sunglasses, handbags and skinny jeans.
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Kerry Washington. Scandal’s leading lady schools us in the correct way to channel formal and funky on the red carpet, without looking out of place.
X Y Z Jacobs.
iao Wen Ju. The 22 year old model who was the first model of Chinese origin to become the face of Marc
asmin Le Bon. One of the 1980s top models.
oe Saldana. Whether she’s in jeans and a vest or a designer dress, Zoe exhibits a distinct talent for looking polished in public.
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