Volume XX – Otwo – Issue 10

otwo

music

SIVA KANESWARAN GEORGE EZRA THESE NEW PURITANS film LAUGH TRACKS DIRECTORS GOING TO EXTREMES games INTROVERSION SOFTWARE DRUNKEN ROBOT PORNOGRAPHY PATH OF EXILE FASHION BALL SEASON STREET STYLE

letter from the editors

What’s hot & What’s not What’s hot

What’s not hot

Everything James Murphy is Doing These Days

The No More Buckfast Hoax

As much as it still hurts that LCD Soundsystem are RIP Soundsystem, at least James Murphy has been busy releasing boxsets, designing coffees and transforming the New York subway into a multi-station symphony. The Long Goodbye, the vinyl boxset of their last gig, is set for release on April 19th, while his coffee, House Of Good, is available online now, as are his plans for a musical subway at www.subwaysymphony.org

Tens of thousands of tonic wine aficionados lost their shit last week when a rumour started up that Buckfast was to be discontinued. Scottish and Irish boozers alike protested this wholly ungrounded decision. So what if Buckfast was mentioned in an average of 2,893 crime reports per year by Police in just one region of Scotland between 2008 and 2012? That’s nothing! Luckily, and justifiably, it was all just a rumour, so you won’t have to trash the Benedictine monks’ gaff.

Wes Anderson Fancy Dress Party

Student Race Day

Twitch Plays Pokémon

Uptown

You shouldn’t really need an excuse to dress up like Captain Zissou, Richie Tennenbaum or the Fantastic Mister Fox on a Friday anyway; that’s just what some people wear at the weekends.

But if you’re not one of those people, and want to be, then head along to Light House Cinema this Friday for their Wes-themed fancy dress screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Book online at www.lighthousecinema.ie and don’t make the mistake of dressing for the Wes disco.

Hola, Welcome to Otwo my friend, 24 full pages of no holds barred sticky icky fuzzy wuzzy arts and culture goodness. Is goodness even a word? Who cares, it’s midterm season and you need to desperately escape your future repeats.

Seriously though, Otwo believes in you. You will pass, you will go on a sesh and maybe, just maybe you will get to talk to that cute guy/girl/fish in your lectures. That belief comes at a price, you will have to keep reading this.

You may not have done Jailbreak, but does it really matter? After all, we’ve got all the lowdown of what its like in Paris, along with drinking some sweet Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale. It’s so good, it tastes like charity and good will.

If you’d like the complete opposite of good will, check out our regulars @tila, Mystic Mittens and Foil Arms and Hog for fortnightly wisdom/crackpot theories. Orla Gartland, meanwhile, has been charitable enough to stop on by and provide us with her aura of hipness.

Games this issue sees reviews of Path of Exile and Drunken Robot Pornography, which as titles read together becomes perhaps the best quest movie ever imagined. Anyway, you shouldn’t base your opinions on amazing titles and sure, our writers decide your opinions for you.

Niall “Exiled Drunken Robot Pornographer” Gosker has a sit down with the brains behind Introversion Software, which (like many of those we feature in Games) is colourful and makes you think.

In Film, Aaron Murphy questions the reasons and problems that sitcoms face when applying a laugh track to their shows. Also, Steven “the grumps” Balbirnie explores the lengths and breadths directors will go in pursuit of artistic perfection.

Meanwhile, Top Ten countdown for this issue looks at the ten best car chases in the history of film.

Reviewed this issue are a host of critically acclaimed films that will cater for everyone: The Book Thief, Under the Skin and Tim’s Vermeer.

Our centre interview for this issue is a big one, when BRIT nominated Siva Kaneswaran of hit band The Wanted sat down with Kill.i.an “James” Woods to discuss about the reasons the band are parting ways and the fallout from their hit reality TV show The Wanted Life.

Elsewhere in Music, George Ezra had a fun chat with Rebekah “New Hairdo” Rennick, along with interviews with These New Puritans and HAWK. September Girls are also on our radar and new releases from Angel Olsen to Beck are put under the microscope.

Rounding off the rundown of what’s hot in Otwo this week (well, it’s all hot), Lucy Coffey has tips for getting that perfect ball look this season.

Anyways, that’s it until next time. And once you’ve gotten your fill of Otwo, don’t forget to get back to that important procrastinating.

We’re glad you came, Jack & Steven

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We would have used this space to say something valuable about Twitch Plays Pokémon, but we were too busy watching Twitch Plays Pokémon. If you’re wondering who this Twitch guy is and why he’s so crap at Pokémon, then you’ve missed the S.S. Anne on the internet’s latest social experiment, wherein 50,000 plus people simultaneously played the same game. Possibly the best thing that’s happened since you got a Gameboy for your communion. PRAISE HELIX.

mystic mittens

We wouldn’t mind the Spin 103.8-sponsored annual piss-up in Leopardstown if it didn’t masquerade itself as a bourgeois Smithfield Horse Fair. The main focus of the day should be on the pretty horses in the pretty races, instead it has become centred on how much Sally Hanson is required to capture a truly great cover photo, because if you don’t get the perfect shot it won’t justify taking the day off college.

When you’re alone and life is making you lonely, you can always go… downtown. When you’ve got worries, all the noise and the hurry seems to help, I know, downtown. Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city. Linger on the sidewalk where the neon signs are pretty.

How can you lose? The lights are much brighter there, you can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go downtown, things’ll be great when you’re downtown, no finer place for sure, downtown, everything’s waiting for you.

Gemini

Aquarius

Scorpio

Tomorrow you will be named the new Avatar; the only one who can bend all four elements and bring balance to the world.

Shame you’re in the M. Night Shamalan version. Enjoy, white boy.

Mittens’ Pro Tip #88 – Carrying a swimming bag shaped like a fish will not make that guy in your zoology class like you. Only flopping around while being photographed jumping out of the mouth of an Alaskan bear will make that freak wanna tap that.

You will witness the rare moment of seeing a man say goodbye to a shoe. This will only happen once more in your entire lifetime, involving a series of unfortunate events leading to your ownership of the Denver Broncos.

Taurus Even though Twitch Plays Pokémon is no longer active, your lord and saviour, the Helix, has not abandoned you. That’s because he was never really looking out for you in the first place. All hail the Dome.

Cancer It has been over a week since Jailbreak and you’re still stuck in Howth. You raised a tenner and can’t get a bus home. Please stay where you are, Mittens will come and rescue you eventually.

Cannibalism is recommended in such circumstances, but ration your partner.

Leo You will stop what you’re doing right now. You will start working out. You will call your mother. You’ll get a 4.2 GPA in your midterms and then you will do something truly special.

You will throw it all away and become this year’s SU elections joke candidate.

Pisces In about a week, everyone in your zoology course will be shocked and horrified to have found out that you were discovered sleeping with the fishes. Now that Mittens has found you, prepare to meet your doom, Aquaman.

the water in the ucd taps looks like milk

Libra It has been said that the greatest way to learn and help yourself is to help another person. That’s all well and good, but what happens if it’s your evil twin sister who is also the vice-president and also two days from retirement and is in love with you?

Sagittarius You will be cast in the direct sequel to Bones, called Capillaries, in which you solve crimes based on the trail of capillaries left by killers.

Yes, it’s as terrifying as it sounds. It doesn’t really get better from here.

The only Buffy cast member to be your sidekick is Jonathan... Enjoy.

Virgo This fortnight you will become an absolute ledge. They will call you Sir Replacement Milk Drinking Champion Man and you will clean up our fair concrete slab by finally erasing all the drivel on the ‘Before I Die...’ wall in Arts.

Wait, that last one sounded like a good thing. Go you.

Aries

Capricorn

In an intense and wacky twist of fate, it will be revealed in a cliffhangerstyle moment that you are in fact the fourth Haim sister. A week after mastering the triangle and bass guitar, everyone realises that you’re the Steven Baldwin of the family.

You will watch Leonardo DiCaprio lose for a third consecutive time at the Oscars, in person. How you may ask? You will be transported into the body of Matthew McConaughey just as he wins the Oscar, and be forced to look into poor Leo’s eyes.

index 2 Regulars

——————————————— Mystic Mittens divines your future from amidst the coughed up hairballs strewn about Observer towers (because tea leaves are for schmucks). What’s Hot/ What’s Not will also give you all you need to blag your way through any conversations about current pop culture.

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4 5 6

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Regulars

——————————————— Instead of writing those assignments that were due in yesterday, read Dónal Ó Catháin’s forewarning to you of the horrors of procrastination in this issue’s Soapbox. Contents also provides you with the key to unlock the knowledge and wisdom contained in the hallowed pages of this tomb.

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music

Travel & Drink

Games

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——————————————— Reviews sees Karl Quigley indulging in some misleadingly-titled Drunken Robot Pornography, while Duncan Wallace struggles to find his way back from the Path of Exile. Also, bringing you behind the scenes at Introversion Software, Niall Gosker chats to Mark Morris, one the visionaries behind such uplifting titles as Prison Architect and DEFCON: Everybody Dies.

——————————————— Patrick Kelleher counts down the ten greatest car chases in cinematic history, while you can read all about the latest releases in you local picture house; Under the Skin sees Scarlett Johansson playing a seductive alien, Tim’s Vermeer examines one man’s quest to reproduce the work of one of art’s greatest painters, and The Book Thief presents a very different kind of World War Two movie. Aaron Murphy questions the purpose of the laugh track in modern TV sitcoms, while Steven Balbirnie takes a look at the extremes that film directors will go to for the sake of that final cut.

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——————————————— Ruth Murphy visits the romantic capital of the universe this week and explains why you should always be wary of Parisian toilets. Meanwhile, Beer of the Fortnight proves that there’s more to Kentucky than fried chicken, as their Bourbon Barrel Ale is sampled.

Film

Centre

columns

——————————————— Like always, Foil, Arms and Hog are on hand to lift your spirits through the monotony of midterms, and everyone’s favourite Hun, @tila, shares more of his/her barbarian know-how to assist you through the travails of your debauched university life.

Soapbox— Procrastination

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On his soapbox, Dónal Ó Catháin bemoans the grip procrastination has on all our lives

——————————————— Ahead of their upcoming show in the O2, Killian Woods chats to Siva Kaneswaran of The Wanted about his input into the writing the band’s songs, his regrets from delving into reality TV, and Mickey Rourke’s not-so-kind compliments.

——————————————— You’d better track down your Becktionary, as the folk legend is back with a new album that gets reviewed this issue alongside the latest offerings from Angel Olsen, Milagres and Champs. These New Puritans, George Ezra and HAWK also stop by for a bit of a chinwag over some tea and Fig Rolls, while September Girls are picked up by our Radar, and we also have the latest instalment of Gartlandia for you.

fashion

——————————————— Are you needing some advice for that perfect ball gown? Our fashion spread has some great selections modelled for your pleasure and also some other top tips. Emily Mullen is also back again to remind you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have, #winningorbinning.

culture

——————————————— Writer and co-founder of Big Smoke Writing Factory, Claire Hennessy, talks to Rebecca Coyle about teaching creative writing in Dublin, and in her column, Laura Woulfe ventures into a 150 year retrospective of the National Gallery of Ireland from its foundation to the present day.

fatal Fourway

——————————————— Hollywood’s most famous automaton, K-Stew, is the subject of this issue’s battle royale... What’s Kristen Stewart’s most wooden performance?

Read on to find out what the fourway have to say.

We’ve all been there, trying to start writing an assignment and then the internet (or even emptying the dishwasher) ends up distracting you.

This pattern seemingly repeats ad infinitum, despite all the empty promises we make to ourselves that pretend to entertain the notion that we will start an assignment the day we actually get it. Absurd.

With all that study I have to do for my three midterms this week, as well as completing that 2,000 word essay assignment that was given out a month ago and is now due in 72 hours, it’s a wonder that I got around to writing even this piece about procrastination at all.

There’s also that job application form which has been sitting on my desk for the past three weeks that is demanding to be filled out; along with cleaning my room which I’ve been meaning to get around to doing for the previous six months. But surely I will complete these tasks soon, because everybody knows that in the stages of getting things done, intention directly precedes action. Right?

Nobody ever accomplishes everything they have on their to-do list.

Don’t let any obnoxious over-achievers tell you otherwise. They have yet to check not being a pretentious grossly unlikable wagon wheel off their list.

Why is it that we forget stuff we mean to do constantly? It’s a marvel that any near-productive endeavours are ever carried out in this world when we eternally have oodles of time to spend on distractions like Snapchat, Facebook and Flappy Bird, but fail to do things that are actually slightly important like earning 50% of our module credits or eating.

The most perplexing thing is that it’s not that we don’t intend to do what we say we’ll do, it’s just that nine times out of ten it enters the category of the hundreds of other things we have on our minds that need to be done at any one time.

One mildly successful approach I’ve taken to address this whole amnesic (no disrespect to genuine amnesiacs) conundrum is to write something I have to do down as soon as it pops into my head, and to do it as soon as humanly possible before it escapes my mind.

All that’s required is a pen and some paper, or a smartphone with note-taking capabilities. The secret is to make sure you don’t forget not to forget… easier said than done.

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Foil, Arms & Hog—That’s not a real job Sick of your lack of “transferable skills”? Foil Arms and Hog are on hand to show you the best non-jobs anyone can do

2. Human statue You’re walking down Grafton Street, out of the corner of your eye you see someone minding their own business staring blankly into the distance. No, wait a second, they’re working. Take a bow, the human statue. Genius. Never before has so little effort been met with so much reward. That guy covered in gold paint with the fake pigeon on his head got a 2.2, so you’re laughin’.

Come up with a controversial/sexy/obscure slogan like ABUSE, LICK or CORNET, then find a nice big chunky font and print it on a baseball cap! Pop the champagne, because (congratulations) you’re Ireland’s hottest new fashion designer

You might be in college studying hard to get a good degree that leads to a proper job, but then again, you might be doing an Arts degree. Never fear, below is a list of the top “not real jobs” that any fool could do.

1. Promoter Run things. People who ‘run things’ are perceived to be working. “I run events,” this one sounds nice and vague, and action-y. All you need to do is shave both sides of your head, twirl your keys-on-a-lanyard and setup Facebook events that are in all caps with no grammar FOUREURODRINKS@CLUBREDZ ALLNITE. Boom: you have a job.

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Story Hun,

You’re never unemployed when you’re an actor.

Just literally say you’re an actor. 90% of actors have never actually acted in anything; they mostly just wait tables or drink gin.

8. Guinea pig

The world of fashion is swarmed with the welldressed, beautiful and unemployed in denial. “I run an online fashion blog.” That is exactly the same thing as saying “I have my own newspaper, it’s called The Conor Times.” You make it in your bedroom and use it to bitch about people you know.

Become a full-time clinical trialist! Why not contribute to society by proving that certain drugs have adverse effects on humans? You could say proudly over a pint “Scientists thought diproxinol-5 was a major player in the war on eczema, but I proved it makes your hands fall off.”

4. Photographer

9. Installation Artist

This next one requires a little initial investment, but as soon as you’ve bought that really expensive camera, congratulations; you’re a photographer.

Cameras are so good these days that any clown can produce high quality shots with the click of their jammy finger. Go forth and snap up weddings, bar mitzvahs, and portfolios for impressionable young models.

We’ve kept the best till last, a standing ovation please, for all the installation artists. It’s not 50 iPhones chucked into 14 cubic meters of elephant dung, it’s a modern art. A representation of humanity’s struggles against consumerism. What’s more, you’re a shoe-in for an arts council grant. Well played sir, well played.

Now if you don’t mind we have to go back to applying varnish to a butternut squash in order to use it as a prop in our show for the next week without it rotting. Some people have real jobs.

5. Socialite Do you like to get hammered, party all night long, and have sex with lots of people? Congratulations; you’re a socialite, now monetise that shit.

6. Tat fashion designer Here’s one some of the artsy craftsy people have cottoned on to. Come up with a controversial/sexy/ obscure slogan like ABUSE, LICK or CORNET, then find a nice big chunky font and print it on a baseball cap!

Been dealing with da huns problems since 445AD… Ur resident agony aunt & Hunnic Emperor lol!

Don’t mess wit my girlos or I’ll wreck u like I wrecked da city of Aquileia . xoxo. Tweet me!

How many exceptions are dere fer cheatin? I kno de obvious ones lyk if I score one of my huns when de fella’s around, nd when every1 involved is 2 locked to remembr… but if it’s a celeb that ye mad fancy, that has te be grand? ‘Cos me and de girlos went 2 see Phil ‘de Power’ Taylor in de darts last week in Maynooth, nd he was all ovr us, singin’ ‘Chase the Sun’ to me and all! So it hardly counts as cheatin if I rattled him aftr the match??

Loryta xx

7. Actor/waiter

3. Fashion blogger

@tila_da_hun Hiya Hun,

Pop the champagne, because (congratulations) you’re Ireland’s hottest new fashion designer.

Nothing to it.

So listen, me new fella is actually de soundest lad I’ve ever been wit. He’s de kind of boyf you cud both bring u ok hun? home to meet yer Ma’ and bring out to de Bluebell rave yipped ourrof it. He gave me de DJ Jean vinyl 4 Valentines, and he writ me dis class poem…

“Roses r red, Ghosts r blu, Ur bleedin masso, n I’d double drop u” So if we’re getting serious, shud I change my relationship status? Cos I luv him to bits an’anyways, but ‘single’ makes me look more cute’n’fun.

Fuck sake?

Kencha xx Howiye love, C’mere, Well if I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a fuppin rake of times; de most important ting is always look cute Well wat ur describing sounds lyk an actual once in ‘n’ fun! Yer fella sounds like a top drawer lad tho in a lyftime opportunity so that obviously comes into fairness, so de best way to go about it is usin’ de de picture. Bein given de chance to feel The Power relationship to ur advantage in a way dat makes u doesn’t happen to more than a few girls each week, look more savage. Lyk, always make him dress gud so ur a lucky hunzo! I remember when we were goin out, and take a shitload of selfies, nd everyone rogerin’ Arcadiopolis in 443, we stopped fer a few will be mad jealous of ye! tins in a local on a mad high cos Theodosius’s army Always drop someone if they dnt suit your look. was shagged aftr we ruined them, so we took de Like when I was crossin River Po in our Italian invanite off to go on the batter. sion, half de fuckin’ girlos were riddled with disease No joke, Martin Wolfie Adams was doin a darts nd starvation. Nd like, I didn’t wanna look like a exhibition in dis pub, nd I was de first hun to ride bet-down crippled hussy, so I got the flip away from him. The missus Honoria didn’t even mind cos she them b4 meetin de lads Valentinian III was sendin was gaggin for a bit of him too. If yer fella’s any sort over to meet us. Even got the shift and all. of decent fella, he shud appreciate u more fer it. Cos Stay masso in fairness to de lads, der’s only one Phil Taylor.

Tila xoxo Tila xoxo

Foil Arms and Hog play Vicar Street on April 12th and tickets can be purchased on http://www.ticketmaster.ie. For videos and more go to www.foilarmsandhog.ie

Paris—The Dos & Don’ts The charms and flaws of the city of light are detailed by Ruth Murphy as gives you the dos and don’ts for the city of love

Beer of the

Fortnight

Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale

Photo Ruth Murphy

Do

order wine with water in restaurants.

Wine in Paris can be surprisingly cheap.

Don’t be taken for a fool, though. Paris is used to its tourists and knows it can charge us more than the locals. If you order wine with a glass of water, as the locals do, you will be charged the non-tourist price.

Don’t

bother suffering through queues.

Yes, the view from the Eiffel Tower is beautiful and yes, some paintings in the Louvre are one of a kind, but is it really necessary waiting for over an hour to see a glimpse of an image? So, if queues aren’t really for you, having a picnic by the Seine is a nice queue-free way to spend your day.

Do

purchase travel tickets in advance. You can talk to staff at a metro station about what tickets would suit you best and whether you should travel by bus, metro or train. When travelling on the bus you can do two journeys on the one ticket so long as you get on the second bus within 90 minutes of getting on the first.

Don’t

expect good toilets or even toilets for that matter. At best you may be lucky enough to find a clean toilet with some toilet paper, and at worst you will get a hole in the ground that you will smell before you see it.

Availing of the toilets in a McDonald’s is the way to get around this minor issue. They are generally clean and should actually have toilets rather than holes that they seem to expect you to simply levitate above.

Do

take advantage of student discounts.

Many places will give discounts to students, those under 18 or sometimes those under 21 (with identification). Discounts are available in the Louvre, the Pantheon and many other wonders.

Don’t

order minerals in restaurants or cafés. They are quite expensive whereas coffee and hot chocolate are relatively cheap. You could end up being charged as much as €8 for a glass of coke, while a coffee or hot chocolate usually goes for a standard price of about €2.50 in most purchase anything on the Champs establishments.

Elysée or in Galleries Lafayette; enjoy what’s free. It costs you nothing unless you see a sale or ‘vente’ sign. Nevertheless, to stroll through Luxembourg Gardens do explore these places. A good thing to do is pop or visit the bridge with locks hanging down its into the shop Hermés. There are a few around Paris and it’s amusing to see just how much you side or step inside the grounds of the Louvre and take a photo of yourself pretending to may get charged for fashion. touch the tip of the glass pyramid. You are eat breakfast out. Your hotel/hostel/hovel free to see the flowers that are still laid by at the side of the road will probably offer the tunnel where Lady Diana died, or stare breakfast at a fixed price. If you walk around you at the many faces that line the side of the will find cafés selling breakfast, usually consisting Pont Neuf. You can listen to music play along of a croissant, a tartine and some orange juice or the cobblestone streets and sunbathe on coffee, at a range of prices. Looking around could the sand by the Seine, which is only there in definitely save you a few bob. And hey, you may summer. The sand that is, the river is there all even get an extra piece of bread with your meal. year round of course.

Don’t Do

Do

Don’t

pack for warm weather.

Paris really isn’t that much warmer than here and in winter it’s actually colder. So, bring clothes that will keep you snug and warm as you trail the streets of the beautiful city.

IN 1999, the Alltech Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company was founded by Irishman Pearse Lyons in Kentucky. Since then, it has created a distinctive niche in the market for itself.

This is mainly due to their flagship beer, the Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, which has won a variety of awards and has become increasingly available globally.

This beer is an Americanstyle strong ale. Once brewed, it spends six weeks in bourbon casks to soak in the flavour.

The result is a very smooth, deep orange coloured ale with a charred oak barrel fragrance and a malty flavour that is light on hops, with a vanilla and caramel aftertaste.

Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale is almost too drinkable for a beer that’s 8.2%, so don’t let it lull you into a false sense of security.

Compared to other beers that have spirit flavours, Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale works remarkably well.

Rather than tasting artificial, the bourbon flavour has genuinely infused the ale, resulting in a highly enjoyable after-dinner drink.

Steven Balbirnie

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Path of Exile Path of Exile, an online isometric role-playing game, represents Grinding Gears’ first release and is a free-to-play, polished and reasonably pretty title.

Producing such a game is a clear tactic from the company as it aims to use this release to cultivate attention for itself by garnering positive feedback and reputation in the games market.

It’s impossible not to notice the similarities between it and Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo series, of which Path of Exile reflects both the ambience and gameplay. Unfortunately, it is largely this consideration, along with its respective merits and demerits, which will predominantly determine whether or not someone is going to like the game.

While there is both a story and NPCs within the game world, the narrative is largely inconsequential in Path of Exile. Nevertheless, Grinding Gears have made efforts to flesh out the world of the game.

The graphics are pleasantly refreshing, with lighting effects in particular standing out; although the isometric perspective induces a certain disconnect from the world.

The heart of the game is the combat system. It is disappointing that the mainstay of such action is simply pointing your mouse over an enemy and clicking until the opponent is dead. Therefore, much of the skill is taken away from your character and your outcome relies on whether you are accurate, fast, or brutal at tap, tap, tapping your way to

Developer: Grinding Gears Platform: PC

victory. It’s essentially a substitution of dice rolls for localised index finger banging.

Most of the tactics involved will determine what passive effects are in play, such as the ways in which weapons or armour are modified, or the choices players make in the impressively broad character development tree. While the game does advance somewhat beyond simple hack-and-slash, it doesn’t get close to competing with the complexity of most commercial third or first-person action games in terms of pure combat mechanics.

Of course, Path of Exile is designed as an online game. It is in this vein that the game encourages strategy. As a band of players working together within a group, the game allows players to incorporate various roles of melee and ranged combatants. In this respect, the relative simplicity of user actions, combined with the frenetic pace at which engagements can develop, lends itself well to party dynamics.

Demanding minimal investment and exhibiting a shallow learning curve, Path of Exile is ideally suited to casual gamers who value quality of delivery over scope of the content delivered. Despite its dark aesthetics, Path of Exile is a charming title. It is somewhat disappointing that Grinding Gears’ efforts didn’t generate a game that was more deeply engaging.

Duncan Wallace

Drunken Robot Pornography Dejobaan Games, best known for the brilliantly named AaAaAA – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity, a game that involves base-jumping through a floating city, throwing thumbs up and obscene gestures at the crowd while spray painting targeted buildings, are back with their next title.

Drunken Robot Pornography is a bullet-hell action game set in a futuristic Boston. You play as Reuben Matsumoto, an inventor of sorts. The story is based around Reuben causing havoc throughout the city due to his mistake of giving his robot bartender, Tim, sentience.

Unhappy with his unappreciated life, Tim leaves, taking all of the other robots with him. This leads to the creation of the Titans, which are giant, laser-spitting, screen-filling death machines.

Desperately trying to live up to the bullet-hell name, each level features a huge number of enemies. Using a jetpack and a laser rifle, the player makes their way through each level, striving to attain a certain score or kill a number of Titans, always within a time limit.

The Titans are tough and must be taken down piece by piece, but the player is often helped along with the power ups that litter the ground.

Multi-tiered levels have a Quake feel to them, but only in structure.

The game falls short in several aspects. Some levels are too easy, filled with the lowest tier enemies. There is something severely wrong when,

in a bullet-hell game, the player can stand still for more than a few seconds and lose no health.

The levels start off too easy, become half decent, and then the difficulty ramps up without warning.

Some levels force survival with no weapon while collecting items (usually alcohol) to gain points. Any damage taken drastically reduces the points the player had been carrying.

The number of enemies and the frantic nature of these particular levels give a vague sense of what should be felt in a game like this. However, with the lack of a weapon in hand the feeling is fleeting, leaving only frustration in its wake.

One of the most notable flaws is the humour.

The title itself implies utterly ridiculous humour that offers at least a chuckle. What’s present in the game feels forced and rarely is a joke legitimately funny.

Even with these flaws, the game has its moments; bouncing from jump pad to jump pad with boosts of the jetpack, all the while filling the screen with lasers is a fun experience. That is, until the momentary joy fades as you watch the clock countdown and the points accumulated fall pathetically short of the goal.

Drunken Robot Pornography is a combination of both good and bad ideas defined by frustration.

Its execution of these never goes beyond merely sufficient.

Karl Quigley Developer: Dejobaan Games Platforms: PC

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Hacking the system Mark Morris, co-founder of veteran UK indie developers Introversion Software, talks to Niall Gosker about the tough early millennial years and their vision for cyberspace in video games Prison Architect

Before indie games development as we know it today really took off, Introversion Software were hard at work desperately trying to make it.

The company came together at the turn of the millennium in 2001 when three friends, some of whom already had full-time development jobs at other companies, decided to try their own thing.

Since then, they’ve become known as one of the UK’s premier independent developers with a small, but very dedicated, following. The journey hasn’t always been a smooth one, with some bumpy patches along the way to a currently comfortable status.

The group’s debut game is arguably their most striking, a considerable feat in light of how imaginative future titles from Introversion Software continued to be. Uplink is certainly a product of its time, capitalising on the sudden mass interest in cyber hijinks in light of the success of The Matrix.

Mark Morris, co-founder and Managing Director, recalls what inspired the team to delve into the shady world of hacking for their first project. “We’d been teenagers during the time that the whole cyberspace theme started becoming prevalent.

Neuromancer, Sneakers, Lawnmower Man etc.

“Hollywood had done a great job of portraying the exciting side of hacking, but nobody had made a video game that did the same thing, abstracted the boring and tedium of being an actual hacker and replaced it with a thrilling story in which the player participates.

“I think we actually really nailed that vision with Uplink,” Morris says. “Even 13 years later, I personally don’t think there is a better hacking game.”

It was a homemade endeavour in every sense of the word, with creative lead, Chris Delay, and business manager, Thomas Arundel, having to make the CDs for each order themselves. It’s important to remember that at this stage the idea of purchasing games digitally wasn’t widespread, making distribution for smaller teams much more difficult than it is now.

Despite being very well received, like many great experimental games, Uplink didn’t sell in huge numbers. Further compounding the impending financial woes was the issue of US publisher Strategy First, who stopped paying royalties.

Two years after its release, Uplink was continuing to sell, but only in the region of around £3,000 worth of copies a month, just enough for key infrastructure, such as web servers, to remain in play. By the summer of 2003, the company was almost broke. All hopes lay upon the success of the team’s second title, Darwinia, which wouldn’t come out for almost two more years after being subject to delays.

Darwinia followed a familiar pattern, launching to positive reviews and modest sales, but then petering out within a few months. It seemed as though they were heading for a second financial crash, until they decided to get in touch with Valve, the company who own the digital distribution

platform Steam, which had gained momentum in the several years since its rocky launch with Half-Life 2 in 2004.

Valve was all too eager to arrange for Darwinia to join the ever-growing ranks of their store. With this, Introversion Software gained a new level of exposure to a greatly increased worldwide audience.

They had come a long way from having to press their own compact discs. Game number three came in 2006, a global thermonuclear war simulator named after the United States’ defence readiness system, DEFCON. It finally marked the beginning of a period of stability, which has only gotten stronger since.

While the team’s projects are very varied in both concept and gameplay, certain recurring themes and ideas run through most of them, such as the consequences of human interaction with technology. Morris suggests that they don’t deliberately go after these specifics, but rather they tend to pop up naturally.

“We don’t set out with a particular set of characteristics that we want to include in the next Introversion game, but there are similarities. I once boiled it down to cerebral, strongly thematic strategy games. Hacking, nuclear war, prisons; Darwinia is the exception. I think that’s what we do best.”

Such a mandate probably shouldn’t come as a surprise from a group with the word ‘introversion’ in their title. Many of the company’s games are thick in atmosphere, DEFCON being a particular highlight in this regard with a wonderfully bleak depiction of the apocalypse. Most impressive about this is how such an evocative tone is created with such minimalist visuals.

With DEFCON, players see only a blackened map of the world with the millions of human lives hanging in the balance represented by mere simple symbols.

“It’s almost all about the audio. We have an absolutely marvellous audio guy, Al Lindsay, who really understands Chris’ vision for a game and creates a soundscape that provides the atmosphere that you’re talking about. We wouldn’t be half as successful as we have been if it wasn’t for Al.” For the past two years the team has been working on Prison Architect, which is something of tonal departure, opting for a more light-hearted approach. Despite only being in alpha, the game has reportedly made approximately $11 million USD for Introversion, the decision to go with an early access model having paid off handsomely.

It’s a remarkable contrast to the difficult situations Introversion Software faced in their earlier years and a testament to how game development has changed so significantly over the past decade, so as to allow smaller teams the ability realise their visions without having to starve for it.

Hollywood had done a great job of portraying the exciting side of hacking, but nobody had made a video game that did the same thing, abstracted the boring and tedium of being an actual hacker

To keep up with the development of Prison Architect visit http://www.introversion.co.uk/

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No laughing matter With the sitcom laugh track managing to survive after the days of live studio audiences, Aaron Murphy examines what purpose it serves and the impact it has on TV comedy

Why would a director ever make the conscious decision to overlap a bunch of laughing strangers over his work? Watching The Big Bang Theory without the laugh-track is one of the most painful experiences you can endure. Suddenly, the ironic, “nerd-empowering” back and forth becomes an uneasy-silence filled void of exclamations and bad references.

The same can be said of Friends and How I Met Your Mother. We know the gaps are meant to be full of raucous laughter, but shouldn’t we be filling them? In many ways, the laugh track adds insult to injury for the viewer; it’s almost condescending.

There is a case that viewers aren’t taken being seriously enough in their ability to laugh themselves at comedy or are being perceived by studios as too stupid to understand comedy that they have to be told on cue when to laugh.

Are we so far advanced along the path of languid apathy and force-fed entertainment that we can’t pick a punchline out of a string of dialogue? We can’t bring ourselves to expel our easy-won giggles?

Laugh tracks, with the possible exception of Mrs. Brown’s Boys, are added in after shooting, but are usually taken from the actual laughs of an audience watching the final product. Very rarely are shows nowadays, shot live. It could be argued that the laughter is there to create a theatric atmosphere.

Certainly with fixed camera shows like Friends this is a valid point, and in shows like Father Ted, you can forget that there are others laughing under your grunts and snorts. The laugh track feels natural because you have been put in the place of a theatre audience with a genuinely funny situation unfolding before you. But look at the likes of The Mighty Boosh.

It ticks all the theatric boxes without adding in strangers’ laughs and still manages to be funny.

For shows which abandon any theatric element like The Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother, where the camera is dynamic, the time lapses too confusing and, very often, the subject matter too metaphysical, this explanation doesn’t work. The idea that the laughter makes it funnier for the

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viewers than it is, is possibly quite a strong one.

That said, shows like The IT Crowd or Seinfeld are all very funny and don’t, possibly, require their laugh tracks; the joke is always obvious and you don’t need to be prompted to laugh. There was a conscious decision in these shows to include the laughter and it wasn’t to polish a turd, as may potentially be argued for The Big Bang Theory.

Graham Linehan, writer and director of Father Ted and The IT Crowd, claimed in an article in The Guardian, that the laughter is there not to remind us to laugh, but as a reminder to the cast to make people laugh. Quite a confusing point to make for shows that weren’t filmed in front of a live audience.

Linehan’s point is a confusing one, but since he wrote Father Ted and it’s a great show, there must be some merit to this idea.

How I Met Your Mother got caught out on Reddit for repeating their laugh tracks. In skipping out on actually attaining laughs, they have also done away with the redeeming feature of this strange practice.

Series like Community, Peep Show and Scrubs all employ the same sort of style used in How I Met Your Mother and are still funny without the laughter of strangers. The argument that the laughter, for shows such as this, needs to be normalised becomes quite a strong one when you look at it like that.

Do some shows use this subliminal messaging to tell us we’re enjoying their uninspired backwash?

Should we stop them? They probably do, and why should we? To take a very Darwinian standpoint, if these shows are really that bad and still going, somewhere people are watching them. If, by chance, these people evolve beyond the need for a hive-mind system of laughter, then the shows will go away.

There will always be a big burden of proof for a laugh track-fuelled show to overturn but at the end of the day, it really does come down to a matter of opinion. Can you justify the laughter being included? Is there a better reason for it? It’s difficult to find one.

There was a conscious decision in these shows to include the laughter and it wasn’t to polish a turd, as may potentially be argued for The Big Bang Theory

Suffering for their art From enduring physical agony and financial ruin to a painstaking attention to detail or torturing cast members, Steven Balbirnie looks at the extreme lengths which directors will go to in pursuit of their cinematic vision

Cinema has always been a demanding art form, requiring substantial financial and time commitments, hours in hair, make-up and prosthetics, and daring and risky stunts. Some directors, however, have gone far above and beyond anything that could be reasonably expected of them or their cast.

In some cases this has been out of a commitment to finish a production that would otherwise be terminated by the studio, or simply in order to create the film at all. Robert Rodriguez, famous for Sin City and Machete, is a prime example of a director who would do anything it took to ensure that his first feature film got made.

Rodriguez’s first film, El Mariachi, was made on a budget of just $7,000; $3,000 of which was raised

by Rodriguez volunteering to undergo laboratory testing of an experimental drug. He wrote most of the film’s script while in the laboratory during these medical trials.

The Machinist grabbed headlines due to the gruelling body transformation which Christian Bale underwent for the starring role, dropping from a weight of 173 pounds down to a dangerously low 110 pounds. This, however, overshadows the physical ordeal endured by the film’s director Brad Anderson.

Anderson tore his Achilles tendon and badly injured his back, but instead of postponing shooting to allow himself to recover, he made the decision to instead continue on schedule, directing while on crutches or strapped to a gurney.

Apocalypse Now, considered one of the greatest motion pictures ever committed to celluloid is also heralded as one of the most draining experiences, physically, emotionally and financially, for its director Francis Ford Coppola.

What had originally been planned as a sixweek shoot spiralled out of control into a filming process that took 16 months, while Coppola had to deal with cast changes and the notorious whims of Marlon Brando.

It is little wonder that Coppola lost 100 pounds in weight and suffered from depression during filming, especially when it is considered that he had to mortgage his own home to raise the funds to cover how far over budget the production had gone.

The severity of the film’s finances were exemplified by Coppola’s efforts to conceal Martin Sheen’s heart attack during filming for fear that the studio would withdraw its backing if they found out.

Sheen’s brother, Joe Estevez, was even flown out to act as a double for some scenes.

The darker side of this commitment to a director’s artistic vision is, however, when the cast and crew bear the brunt of the ordeal. Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of The Shining ’s cast has become infamous in this regard.

While best known for the absurd number of takes he would demand for individual scenes. It

took three days and 60 doors to shoot the “Here’s Johnny!” scene, and it was Kubrick’s deliberate traumatising of the film’s female lead, Shelley Duvall, which illustrated how far he was willing to push to achieve his desired ends.

Kubrick deliberately picked on Duvall and encouraged everyone else on set to do so as well, to inculcate a true sense of helplessness in her performance. As a result Duvall suffered from nervous exhaustion, illness and even hair loss; she later revealed that she had to carry bottles of water with her to prevent her from becoming dehydrated she was crying so much.

Far worse, however, was what director Tobe Hooper put the cast of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre through over the course of filming the iconic slasher film. The film’s cast and crew worked for 16 hours a day seven days a week during a Texan summer heat wave.

Surrounded by rotting meat and without airconditioning, crew members suffered fits of fainting and vomiting during filming, in particular during the dinner scene. Actor Edwin Neal remarked, “Filming that scene was the worst time of my life... and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was.”

Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, also had to wear the same shirt for the duration of the four weeks shooting schedule, without it being washed even once despite the intense heat. The true horror of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was what the cast had to endure onset rather than any of the gore that appeared onscreen.

It must be kept in mind that a director’s firm commitment to seeing the job through does not always involve self-destructive tendencies or the traumatising of their cast and crew. Sometimes this commitment can be benign despite its extremity.

Peter Jackson’s work on The Lord of the Rings trilogy illustrates this point.

The extreme lengths which Jackson went to involved a formidable fastidiousness to detail rather than any kind of torment. Hobbiton was constructed a year in advance of filming to ensure that it had the appearance of a natural environment, and the last day of filming for the extended edition of The Return of the King actually took place three weeks after the film had won the Oscar for best picture.

These are simply two examples out of many, which indicate how committed Jackson was to the project.

So, how far should a director be willing to go to secure their creative vision? There is no easy answer to this question, and undoubtedly the boundaries shall continue to be pushed in the future.

What is of prime importance is that while artistic passion and devotion should be admired, it should never trump the physical and psychological health of the very people who are integral to bringing this vision to the silver screen.

What had originally been planned as a sixweek shoot spiralled out of control into a filming process that took 16 months, while Coppola had to deal with cast changes and the notorious whims of Marlon Brando

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film reviews

Under The Skin Director Jonathan Glazer Starring Scarlet Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Antonia Campbell-Hughes Release Date 14th March

It feels like a long time, or nine years to be exact, since writer/director Johnathan Glazer managed to unnerve audiences deeply with his uncomfortable film, Birth. That controversial film followed a young boy who was claiming to be a woman’s reincarnated husband.

Now in 2014, with Under the Skin, he seems to have polarised critics once again with another film about an entity inhabiting a body it has no right to inhabit. What can’t be denied is that Glazer has given us an intriguing and unnerving low-key sci-fi movie about lust, desire and the human condition.

The film is centred around Scarlet Johansson’s unnamed vampire-like alien who, after stealing the identity of a young woman, descends upon Glasgow to trap unsuspecting men with her unparalleled beauty before leading them to their deaths. Johansson, fresh off providing the sultry voice of the OS Samantha in Her, is playing a very different kind of non-human here.

Her performance and devilishly charming London accent, is strangely engrossing and one that has to rely heavily on facial expression and mannerism in a film that offers her sparse amounts of dialogue. As a result Johansson’s alien comes off as not necessarily evil, but merely doing a job she was sent here to do and, as the film goes on, she becomes more curious of her surroundings.

Glazer also tells a lot of the story here thorough his visuals. The aliens themselves don’t communi-

cate verbally and so we are wisely never actually told why they are doing what they’re doing. Instead we have to work it out by what he shows us.

The ‘honey trap’ sequences, especially, are a sight to behold and Glazer uses them as an opportunity to conjure up the film’s most surreal and unsettling imagery. This is where the film works best. The men she seduces, because they are too busy panting over a bare-skin Johansson, become victims of their own carnal desire to such an extent that they are oblivious to the eerie extra-terrestrial surroundings.

The line between reality and fantasy is even blurred as Glazer voyeuristically turns a hidden camera on the streets of Scotland and some scenes even have Johansson in character talking to ordinary people without being recognised.

In the final third, the film goes all fish out of water and it falters somewhat as the outcast alien briefly and foolishly tries to integrate into our world.

Nonetheless it’s still an interesting take on loneliness and what it is to want to belong.

In a nutshell This is a chilling, bizarre, dreamlike and daring film with a suitably nuanced performance. It‘s not one for everyone but can be rewarding if given the chance.

Mark Conroy

Tim’s Vermeer

Director Teller Starring Tim Jenison, Penn Jillette Release date Out now

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Directed by Teller and produced and narrated

by Penn Jillette, Tim’s Vermeer tells the story of a painting. Not the story in the painting, but the story of how it was made; or may have been.

We are told that debate has long raged over just how Johannes Vermeer made paintings of such astonishing detail and realism. David Hockney and Charles Falco controversially proposed that Vermeer might have made use of optical aids such as the camera obscura.

Taking this as his starting point, Tim Jenison, a successful if slightly oddball inventor and entrepreneur, believes he has figured out almost exactly how Vermeer painted and moreover, if he’s right, then anybody can do it. To prove that Vermeer could have used his method, Jenison sets himself the challenge of recreating Vermeer’s The Music Lesson.

Hockney and Jenison’s ideas are controversial partly because some experts feel that they reduce Vermeer to being nothing more than a machine; that it turns his art from being a magical accomplishment to simply a technical one requiring no particular talent. The counter-argument is that artists have always made use of tools and Vermeer was no different.

Jenison himself notes that what he is attempting to do is somewhat superficial. He is claiming to be able to replicate a Vermeer, but not to compose one. He doesn’t pretend to have the innate artistic creativity or genius of Vermeer.

Dispelling the idea that Vermeer was some kind of miracle-worker seems like exactly the kind of subject that would attract Penn and Teller, but there’s a personal interest as well. Jenison is a lifelong friend of Jillette, who only learned of his interest in Vermeer’s work once it had become something of an obsession.

Jenison’s passion and dedication to his task make for compelling viewing. He recreates the depicted scene in painstaking detail in a rented studio, and personally crushes pigments and grinds optics of the kind available in the 17th century. The film zips along at just 80 minutes, but as a result it feels as if it just scratches the surface.

It’s exciting to watch Jenison’s progress as the days go by, but Teller doesn’t explore why Vermeer’s works have so completely captivated Jenison, and we learn little of Vermeer’s paintings, the artist himself or his time.

In a way then, what we see is really all surface. In that sense, Tim’s Vermeer is like Vermeer’s The Music Lesson. A little more context and understanding might improve enjoyment, but they’re certainly not necessary when what’s on the surface is so enthralling.

In a nutshell An engrossing documentary about one man’s personal mission to recreate a masterpiece.

Ian Mulholland

The Book Thief

Top 10 Car Chases

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Vertigo (1958)

While not much chasing actually happens in this scene, Hitchcock builds the tension and drama so astutely that you probably won’t even realise it’s happening. The dazzling score feels eerie and allows the tension to build slowly.

Ronin (1998)

Made almost entirely by the acting of Robert De Niro and Natascha McElhone, this car chase is remembered as one of the finest parts of the film. Artistically shot and superbly crafted, this is a must for the genre.

The Rock (1996)

Director Brian Percival.

Starring Geoffrey Rush, Emily Watson and Sophie Nélisse Release Date out now

While The Rock is an ultimately disappointing film, there is something entertaining, almost commemorative, about watching Sean Connery speeding through city streets followed by swarms of police cars. It is worth watching if only as a tribute to the famous Bond actor.

7 6 Based on Mark Zusak’s novel of the same name, The Book Thief is set in Germany during Hitler’s reign. The protagonist, a young girl named Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse), is sent to live with her adopted family, Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson) Hubermann. With the Second World War as a constant background, Liesel braves every challenge thrown at her.

For a young girl who became determined to use the words books taught her, her eyes spoke truer. The depth of emotion in young Nélisse’s eyes captured the lively innocence and world wearied quality perfectly. We are shown both the scared and brave young girl. She takes risks, makes mistakes, and yet constantly took chances for those she held dear.

The plot is based on Liesel’s experiences living in Germany and its many complications; not only by keeping a young Jewish man named Max Vandenburg’s (Ben Schnetzer) location a secret, but also slowly learning how to read with her “Papa”, thus creating her passion for books.

Being a restricted narrative, in the sense we only see and know what Liesel sees and knows, we are left sitting on the edge of our seats as events unfold and lives are put at stake. However, this intensity is partially interrupted by a few witty comments by “Papa” and other characters, breaking the ice every now and then.

The film’s primary achievement is the inside perspective of German life during the war, which thus far has not had sufficient publicity or popularity. The rise of fascism is painstakingly obvious as propaganda intensifies.

The historical accuracy of this film is competent, however, since we are restricted to Liesel’s knowledge; we do not get a broader look at the war, except for what happens in Liesel’s life.

The music for The Book Thief was composed by none other than John Williams. Williams is one of the best known and acclaimed composers in modern times, with his work in movies such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Harry Potter. His gentle melodies coincide with the more riotous scenes giving viewers an eerie sense of juxtaposition.

The Book Thief is a new outlook for viewers to experience the Second World War, but what’s most intriguing about this film are the various options the storyline can open. Liesel’s life takes so many turns in the film that it’s a shock to the system when you’re thrown back into the main plot line.

In a nutshell A brilliant yet different outlook on Nazi Germany that will cause you to curse the world for war when you leave the cinema.

5 4 3 2 1

Wanted (2008)

It’s rare to see a woman take the wheel in an action movie’s car chase, so Wanted ’s female lead in the form of Angelina Jolie is refreshing. In this scene, Jolie hangs out of the broken windscreen of a car to shoot, while James McAvoy steers the car.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

Being the sequel to the acclaimed The Matrix, this film had a lot to live up to. While it failed on many of these fronts, the climactic car-chase is amongst the finest. The most exciting moments are slowed down, allowing us to watch as chaos ensues.

The Dark Knight (2008)

While this scene is made up of trucks, vans, cars and a Batmobile, it remains one of the great car chases. As the Joker evokes destruction at every turn, it culminates in the flipping over of his truck by Batman.

Quantum of Solace (2008)

The rip roaring car chase that opens up one of the more disappointing Bond films is definitely one of the greatest.

Bond miraculously survives being shot at, losing his car door, and repeated crashes. High-speed, exciting and completely unrealistic, it is the ultimate car chase.

The Italian Job (1969)

A success for both imagination and hilarity, this car chase is amongst the most entertaining. Watching gold being transported in three mini-coopers is comedy perfection.

They never go that fast, but watching them drive through a traffic jam is enough to provide a few laughs.

B ullitt (1968)

A classic scene from 1960s cinema, Bullitt ’s car-chase has gone down in history as a formative one. It is one of the most understated on the list, with a suspenseful crescendo being reached in the final few minutes.

The French Connection (1971)

A winner of multiple awards in 1972, this film’s car chase is one of the most acclaimed in cinema history. Raw and gritty, it builds the drama and danger with shaky cameras and stellar acting as a car chases a train through the city.

Niamh Rose King Patrick Kelleher

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Most Wanted Ahead of their upcoming show as part of their Word of Mouth Tour in The O2, Siva Kaneswaran of The Wanted chats to Killian Woods about what he wants on his tombstone, his experiences in reality TV, and the reason The Wanted are going on hiatus

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It’s a grave subject for any casual interview to begin on, but when dealing with high-profile pop Well, since we did the E! stars, such as Siva Kaneswaran of the boy band show, [The Wanted Life], The Wanted, the conversation can be dragged in whichever direction the interviewee takes it. it felt like it was every Without a prompt, the conversation drifted man for himself. Our towards what commemoration Kaneswaran would like to appear on his tombstone. Not a natural true colours actually path for the conversation to follow after being asked to talk about some of the most impressive showed and that’s where personalities he has met and worked with over the the team aspect was lost. past four years, one would think; but an interesting start nonetheless.

We carried on from that, Spike Milligan’s may have been credited with you know we carried Britain and Ireland’s favourite headstone epitaph back in 2012, but his “I told you I was ill” entry on working together as doesn’t quite have the same wow factor that Kaneswaran has to draw upon. usual “I always say I have so many quotes I’m going to etch on my gravestone,” he says with a sense of anticipation to see a mock up of the design. “Mickey Rourke was cool, he called me a ‘good looking C-U-N-T’ and Robin Thicke said, ‘Really, really cool good looking guy.’

“All these people I was talking to and you look back and go ‘oh my god, this is ridiculous’. It was of acts such as Usher, Justin Bieber, Carly Rae Jepsen, cool; you get to meet loads [of personalities]. The biggest one was meeting Stevie Wonder and talking and Psy, coming on board to help them break America. to him. He was a nice guy and very grounded. He’s “[Scooter Braun] came on just after we released very philanthropic; he really wants to help humans.”

‘Glad You Came’. [That] was a hit and we did really As he recounts these events, it is clear from well in the UK. When we brought it to America, we his voice that he still feels a buzz from the fame needed someone obviously to package it well in he has enjoyed from being apart of The Wanted America and Scooter was the man for the job at over the past four years. Kaneswaran joined the the time. five-member group back in 2009 and since then “He took it and the song just exploded. Within there hasn’t really been time for the man from two weeks, every radio station was playing it.

Blanchardstown to rest on his laurels.

We’ve had about 98 million listeners at the time. It Level-headed in the delivery of his answers, just went international, it brought us everywhere, Kaneswaran doesn’t get caught up in any notions Singapore, Hong Kong, everywhere. Everyone knew that the band’s future, or his own name, was the song. In America, he just made us this massive written in the stars from the get-go. He maintains band. He took care of us very well in terms of the that hard work and being savvy about building song and maintaining the band.” their profile is what helped the band shoot to Following the success of that fateful single, the prominence.

“When we started off, we knew there was a team band have released a third studio album called involved, but you never do know. You can’t say, Word of Mouth and dabbled in a reality TV show ‘We’re going to be massive!’ You’d never think that. called The Wanted Life, which aired on E! and So we worked our arses off for the first year, about followed the exploits of the band in order to try and eight or nine months, in schools and clubs. boost their profile even further in the US. “When we decided to release the first single, the The TV show, which was produced by Ryan fan base grew and social media pushed it straight Seacrest, ended up being a significant learning to number one, and it was a phenomenal feeling. curve for the band, and some say the catalyst for All the work paid off. We were all emotional and just their eventual announcement that they will be exhausted, because I think we only got maybe three going on hiatus after the upcoming tour. days off in that year, so it felt good. From there it Kaneswaran describes how he felt he personally went onwards and upwards.” learned a lot from the experience. “It was like the When chatting about the method the band use house we were living in was like a set. Everything towards perfecting their image and music, it is clear was really extreme and all our emotions were that behind the scenes, the group are very clinical heightened. I feel like the show did dramatise who in their preparation for albums and tours. A lot of we were and I felt like after the show, it was a bit thought goes into their approach to the process of stitched up. being a successful boy band, which is somewhat “I felt like I was a bit pigeon-holed, and same formulaic, but not rigid when it comes to the final with my partner. I don’t think it was who I was; it product. was very dramatised. I did learn a lot, and in some “It’s one of those situations where you go to ways it brought us together, and got us to talk more. rehearsals and you get really analytic. Of all the Looking back at it, I’d change so much.” things you have to do on the set, we’ve got a lot of Despite the learning curve and opportunities the choreography to do and we’ve got to think of what show presented, Kaneswaran still has regrets about the fans want. getting involved. “I think maybe looking back at it, I “After the set up, there’s the set list of our music; would maybe not have brought my partner into it, there’s going to be a few little acoustic parts and a because she got pigeon-holed and she got typecast, few surprises for the fans. You’ve just gotta go into but that wasn’t her. it and get everything right, get your chords right, “It was quite upsetting afterwards looking at get your lyrics right, set up right, because we’re the programme, knowing that it wasn’t who we going to maybe do a medley too on tour, for the were. On the positive side, we got to do amazing fans to know, which is a great thing because it kind stuff. We got to go to the White House, we got to go of covers all of our albums. everywhere with the show.

“And obviously get healthy too. When you’re on “We got a lot of opportunities and some things I tour, you do an hour and a half of a gig every day regret and some things I don’t, but at the end of the and you just get exhausted; you get knackered. So day, I learned a lot. At the end of the day if you’re you’ve gotta keep healthy too. You have to get going to walk away from something, you have to really serious, because otherwise your voice dies.” have learned something, otherwise there’s no point Despite all the hard work that the band have in doing it.” put into boosting their own profile, the release After the band’s announcement on January 22nd of ‘Glad You Came’ in 2011 presented the group that they were taking a break, the media went with an opportunity to cement their global profile. into overdrive trying to pin-point the exact cause Kaneswaran spoke about Scooter Braun, manager of the split. When asked about the band members’

decision to go on hiatus, Kaneswaran doesn’t hesitate to mention their venture into reality TV. “Well, since we did the E! show, [The Wanted Life], it felt like it was every man for himself. Our true colours actually showed and that’s where the team aspect was lost. We carried on from that, you know we carried on working together as usual.

“It was fine, we’re like brothers; it was fine, but a bit difficult. And then recently we kind of naturally had a meeting together and we decided it felt natural to take a break after the tour and do our own thing.”

Despite the recent revelations, Kaneswaran was keen to point out that although it is disappointing, the band are still close and that he will always cherish the memories from touring and being immersed in the music industry with his friends and bandmates, Jay McGuiness, Max George, Nathan Sykes and Tom Parker.

A special memory that Kaneswaran says he will always hold dear is the time a girl presented him with an old Irish punt when they were on tour in Liverpool.

“I [will] always remember in a school in Liverpool when we started off… A girl gave me, now she’s English, but she found a coin in her grandfather’s pocket when he passed away, and she held it and she showed me it, and it was an Irish punt, a really old Irish punt.

“She was like, ‘Do you want it?’ and I was like ‘What? You want to give me it? Are you sure?’ And she was like ‘Yeah, I don’t know what it is’. I was like ‘It’s a punt!’ and she was like, ‘I don’t know what it is’, so she gave me it as like a thank you for coming to her school years ago.

“I still have it now, I still have it for good luck.

That’s a really nice thing a girl gave me years ago, and I thought, good for the heritage.”

The Word of Mouth Tour starts back in Liverpool on March 14th, with the Dublin date in the O2 set for March 24th, ahead of an extensive tour of the USA and Canada. That leg of the tour consists of 27 shows between April 8th and 17th.

After that rigorous schedule, Kaneswaran is on his own, and it’s a daunting challenge that the singer is looking forward to. “After The Wanted, I would love to do my own music, I think that’s what I’d love to do. I think we all kind of agreed that we’d all do our own thing after the tour.

“After that send off to the fans I think I’m going to do my own kind of sound, pop-indie sound, and I support the rest of the boys in what they do. I want to just go crazy, I’ve already recorded a track with RedOne and I’m writing like crazy. I’m enjoying it and I’m excited. I can’t wait to show you me.”

Fans will be happy to here this enthusiasm from Kaneswaran, who has no intention of fading into the background. This is what he loves and it is evident when he describes how much he enjoys the creative process of writing and recording songs.

“I think on the last album, I wrote like four or five songs on it. I go crazy for writing, I go mental. I love it. All of us kind of work on the album. This, Word of Mouth, the album, has taken us two years to make, two years! And the tour, I can’t wait to get on stage and express that to the fans.

“The fans are dying to hear it in front of them, they connect to it that way. There’s a lot of emotions in it, we put our life and soul into that album, and hopefully fans take that and we can show them a good time. I do think that writing is the most important, that is certain, you’ve got to write, it’s where your strength comes from.”

It is clear that over the next few months, emotions will be high as the band wrap up their final tour before an indefinite hiatus. However, this is just the normal trajectory for all successful boy bands and it wouldn’t be outlandish to think that a reunion is on the cards in the near future.

Siva, Max, Jay, Tom and Nathan have had a habit of giving the fans what they’ve wanted for the last four years, and they will undoubtedly reform someday.

After The Wanted, I would love to do my own music, I think that’s what I’d love to do. I think we all kind of agreed that we’d all do our own thing after the tour.

After that send off to the fans I think I’m going to do my own kind of sound, pop-indie sound, and I support the rest of the boys in what they do

It was like the house we were living in was like a set. Everything was really extreme and all our emotions were heightened. I feel like the show did dramatise who we were and I felt like after the show, it was a bit stitched up

Tickets for The Wanted’s Word of Mouth Tour date in The O2, Dublin, on the 24th of March are available from ticketmaster.ie

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From Bristol to Budapest From necking energy drinks to sell-out shows, the loquacious George Ezra chats to Rebekah Rennick about his journey thus far

Sharing the birth year of a rising singer/ songwriter is always a strange revelation. As their notoriety ascends like that of Bristol-based George Ezra, you can’t help but silently wonder what may have happened if you held such musical talent and potential in your own hands.

Yet, the youthful grace and bashful mannerisms of the unassuming 20-year-old Ezra quickly deflects any preconceptions of a budding musician. “Do I feel grown up? What, me?” Ezra guffaws, yielding the mouthful of water about to jump from his mouth in surprise.

“I’m very aware of how quickly things move these days, and not even in music; everything. We have access to so much these days that of course things move on. I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts. It’s a job that if you don’t enjoy it there’s no point even doing it, you wouldn’t last two minutes.”

The entrancing nature of melody and sound caught the ear of Ezra when he was just a young boy hailing from the quaint village of Hartford, where music is an exotic mistress. Back then, he was still known just as George Barnett.

“I think I was blissfully unaware about how sounds were made,” Ezra muses. “And even now I’m not interested in how sounds are made, I just

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like the sounds. When I was 13-years-old, I got a bass guitar and it was as big as I was. Then when I was about 15-years-old, my dad taught me a few simple guitar chords, and I started to sing.”

What has developed since then is an irrepressibly talented musician with a rough-edged voice dripping with soul; underlining the fact that what you see is certainly not what you get. The blondehair, blue-eyed crooner sits apart from his peers not just in his talent, but with his everyday listening.

Highly influenced by the likes of Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, Ezra sees that genre as his home.

“I’d felt that I’d found my little corner where I could just huddle up and chill out. I’ve never been very interested in hearing loads of new music. You know with these blues artists, you get these 3-CD thing with every song they’ve ever released and I used to listen to those on repeat.”

At school, musical inclinations were never too far away from Ezra, “I was 13 and my school used to do this thing called Rock School,” he giggles. “Every Friday you would stay behind after school and you go in as a band or be put into a band.

“At the end of each term, you would play a gig.

You know, like, Tesco’s Energy Drink? We used to buy like a litre of that each and just neck it after

the last lesson on a Friday and just go mental in a music room.”

From Hartford to Bristol, two years ago, Ezra made the decision to leave behind university, pick up his guitar and take his first steps on the prickly musical trail. “I was studying songwriting and music in one of these places where it was set up around that. They weren’t like ‘Please don’t leave.’

“They were supportive and it looks good for them, if it goes well. But no, it was nerve wracking because I thought I might end up back there in three years’ time and all my friends will have moved off, but you’ve got to jump into it.”

Since then, he has cast a shadow on the Introducing Stage at Glastonbury and placed fifth in BBC Sounds of 2014, yet it is only in the past few month the heat of the media spotlight has intensified.

“I think the hard thing is now once you’re on tour.

My sister’s on tour with me actually just to have a familiar face, and then there’s my tour manager and my sounds man and we all live in this van. It seems like the only time you get a minute to yourself is if you’re on the toilet or you’re asleep. You’re with these people non-stop.”

Yet, between it all, Ezra has completed an

I’m very aware of how quickly things move these days, and not even in music; everything. We have access to so much these days that of course things move on

album to be released in the coming months. Otwo wondered in what shape or form does his creative process develop? “I used to work in a pub and in that sort of environment, if I go to one end of the bar to pull a pint and there’s two guys talking I’m only going to hear a snippet of their conversation and I can make up what came before and after.”

Ezra continued, “My creative process is hectic. I fill pads up with nonsense and then I forget that I’ve done it, I tell myself not to read it back. I don’t try and do anything with it anytime soon and then weeks or months down the line it’s like someone else’s work and I can just have it for free. I’ve got a really bad memory, so it does feel like someone has given me a book full of words. Thank you past George!”

The ability to see the wonder in the simplicities of life is a very special quality, and one that drips from Ezra’s demeanour. From selling out each venue he puts his name to, bringing soulful rejoice back to its roots, and enjoying every minute of his experience thus far. The one man and his guitar formula is a relentless force that has dawned upon a new generation and George Ezra is the leading maestro.

The Musical Purists From grunge kid to deliberately obscure musician, These New Puritans frontman Jack Barnett chats to Ellen Murray about the Wu Tang Clan, broken glass and the mainstream music monster

band, which we weren’t.

For those in the know, art rock band These New “Beat Pyramid was the closest we came to being Puritans have been something of a breath of fresh air from the regurgitated pop tunes of the one, even though that album’s music really has mainstream music industry. more to do with computer music,” Barnett muses.

Ever since the release of their first studio album “And partly the density of the amazing lyrics, the references to numbers, the pseudonyms.”

Beat Pyramid in 2008, the band have enthralled Barnett’s opinion towards the state of listeners and critics alike. Borrowing snippets from mainstream pop music today is unforgiving; a plethora of music genres, the philosophy of the claiming that potential new trends are being wasted band is still one of irrepressible individualism. But rather than expanded upon in favour of mediocrity. where did it all begin?

“There was a period where things were “My older brother got me into Nirvana and interesting, post-Timbaland, where there were Soundgarden and stuff like that at a young age, interesting rhythms and productions. But that’s and through that The Velvet Underground. I was a all died away now and there’s this wave of David little grunger at about nine or ten-years-old,” lead Guetta-inspired conservatism. And it all just vocalist Jack Barnett recalls. sounds so interchangeable to me now, with these “I remember seeing sparks on a repeat of The farty-sounding auto tuned vocals. Compare that Old Grey Whistle Test when I was around that age, with Elton John or Sparks or pop of the in the 1970s them playing ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’, and being blown away and taping it and or George Michael in the 80s, melodically there’s watching it every day. Ron Mael is a comedy genius no contest.”

By the release of their second album Hidden and I still think that song is amazing, it is silly but has this undercurrent of something that’s hard to in 2010, the band had firmly planted themselves put your finger on”. in the consciousness of the music world. With so That “something” is what These New Puritans many sounds working within their songs to create a brought to their debut album with noticeable nods cohesive melody, from classical instruments to voice to American hip-hop group Wu-Tang Clan. “I think mutterings, one may wonder how Barnett begins to the Wu-Tang Clan was partly that I saw it as a way organise his composing. of getting away from being seen as an indie-guitar “It’s whatever the music demands. Sometimes it

There was a period where things were interesting, post-Timbaland, where there were interesting rhythms and productions. But that’s all died away now and there’s this wave of David Guetta-inspired conservatism

will be a piano, or a bass. Sometimes it will be glass. emotions. I wanted to give the music emotional Sometimes I won’t be able to put my finger on how intensity, that’s what mattered. I don’t really worry to make the sound that I’m imagining so I will spend about whether an instrument is used in a particular time trying different ways to replicate it. It’s all genre, that’s for other people to worry about, based on instinct in the first place as I’m writing.” there’s only a conflict if you think there’s one and if If nothing else, These New Puritans are all about you try to force it.” growth and musical exploration. With the recent Within the ever-changing and fickle music announcement of These New Puritans Expanded industry, These New Puritans have managed to (TNP Expanded) due to feature an ensemble of remain true to their artistic vision by refusing to brass, strings, voice and percussions alongside Lost “play the game” and tie themselves down with one Chords to play the band’s new album in its entirety. particular style.

Barnett explained the catalyst behind such an To those who are already fans, keep listening. To undertaking. “We played a similar series of shows at those who wish to experience their sound for the places like the Barbican, Pompidou Centre and Hau first time, “immersion, at the very least” is what Berlin after Hidden was released. The idea is to play lays ahead of them. the album in its entirety with the musicians who played on the album.

TNP EXPANDED is a one-off show at the Barbican “So there will be 14 strings, 10 brass and (featuring strings, brass, voices, and percussion) will woodwind, vibraphones, breaking glass. The idea is be released in April 2014 on the band’s website — that this is an expanded version of TNP, not one of www.thesenewpuritans.com those orchestra plus band shows.”

2013 saw not only the introduction of TNP Expanded, but also the release of the band’s third album Field of Reeds. With its intricate mix of classical, electronic and rock, Barnett has found a way to reconcile his love for the seemingly contrasting styles.

“I just knew I wanted to try and match particular

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Ready to soar the heights Possessing the eccentricities of Bjork sprinkled with Celtic nuances, Julie Hawk of HAWK sits down with Declan Moran to discuss genres, parental influences and the London musical clique

I dug out all my dad’s spanners, I put them in order of pitch, and I kind of fashioned myself a xylophone

Describing the sound of London-based group HAWK seems to bear out the wise words of Elvis Costello; that writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Many critics have retreated confused from the task, to the bemusement of vocalist Julie Hawk.

“We’ve been described as alt-pop recently, and in the next review we got we were described as dark folk. The word ‘indie’ is thrown in there a lot as well. I don’t think any of it is untrue, we’re just so influenced by different things,” Hawk adds with a laugh. “If you guys feel like describing us as something else, then maybe we’ll stick with that one.”

Speaking of the band as half Irish, Hawk herself hails from Galway city, she notes that the “juxtaposition in the music” is its core. “Myself personally, I have a lot of traditional Irish music in my background. And Matt [Harris], who I write with, he’s a stunning piano player, he takes a lot from classical music I think.”

Something of each discipline comes out in HAWK’s brand of ethereality. Lead single ‘Take Off Your Suit’ sees Hawk explore the mysterious shades of a certain kind of Celtic melody, her stunning voice revelling in half-shades and microtonality.

The understated playing shows real dynamic subtlety, with delicate finger-style guitar and violin complementing an insistent snare-drum rhythm.

Hawk herself, not to be confused with the band’s all-caps name, was a would-be musician from infancy. Responsible musical parenting ensured she was surrounded by the right sounds, such as “Sharon Shannon, Steely Dan, Van Morrison and the Gypsy Kings,” and she was turning her hand to playing from the age of three.

“I dug out all my dad’s spanners, I put them in order of pitch, and I kind of fashioned myself a xylophone. It was a good few years before I actually invested in a proper xylophone. So, I was trying to play everything from really, really young.”

Later in life, the musical ferment of London beckoned. “It becomes a much, much smaller part of the world, London, once you establish yourself in a music scene a little bit, because all of a sudden everybody knows each other. So it kind of becomes where you meet your bandmates through friends of friends of friends, open mics and things like that.”

One such open mic, Hawk’s first ever, introduced her to bandmate Matt Harris. “He was working at the open mic, so I saw him every week. Eventually

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we started playing together, then writing together… and the sound became bigger than what two people could make, and hence the band formed.”

The musicians’ grapevine led the duo to drummer Sam Campbell, a product of the Kilburn Institute of Contemporary Music, and his longtime bandmate, bassist Chris Handsley.

The resulting music has a refreshing intelligence.

The haunting ‘Postcard’ recalls Jeff Buckley’s finest, with Hawk’s voice reaching the same delicate melisma and harmonic nuance. Harris’s guitar falls somewhere between ‘Grace’ and ‘The Unforgettable Fire’, creating a sound with depth and chordal mystery. ‘The Value of Gold’ has touches of early U2 in its rhythmic, insistent pulse, but Hawk’s enigmatic lyric and superb vocal are all her own.

Music as subtle and heterodox as HAWK’s was never going to fit neatly into a pre-made NME-ready pigeonhole, and having cut the mustard in London, Hawk enjoys returning home, where audiences, she says, are concerned less with categorising music than listening to it.

By contrast to London’s “more image-driven” scene, music in Ireland is “more eclectic and genuinely open. And genuinely enjoying lots of different styles, without having to associate themselves with one clique or another. And that’s why I love coming back to play in Ireland, because you just, you meet people who might not ever have heard your style of music before just enjoy it, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

2014 is set to be a busy year for the band.

With ‘Take Off Your Suit’ released as their first single and a video just published online, Hawk is quick to gleefully state, “We are dying to share that with everyone.” They’ve opened with a bang; the rest of the year will see HAWK working on their album and touring throughout the spring, including March engagements in Cork, Dublin and Galway.

“Certainly we want to keep getting out of the UK for more gigs, and hit up a couple of Irish festivals as well over the summer too,” Hawk adds chirpily.

If you’re tempted to pick up the genre challenge Julie Hawk lays down about her band, Otwo would advise you to postpone the question, and simply enjoy their sound. Or go dance underneath the water tower, your choice.

HAWK are set to play a Homebeat event in the Oxfam Home on Francis Street, Dublin on March 7th

album reviews

Angel Olsen

Milagres

Champs

Beck

Behind her elvish features and piercing cyan pooled eyes, Missouri native Angel Olsen is an old soul whose emotions are laid bare in her second installment, Burn Your Fire For No Witness.

Revelling, as opposed to whimpering, in lost love and loneliness, Olsen exposes more of herself than ever before, both lyrically and musically.

Opening track, ‘Unfucktheworld’, is a warbling, shivering introduction to Olsen’s mind and heart. While her voice crackles with suppressed emotion, her stance is far from passive, but one of unshakeable intransigence, repeatedly telling the listener “I am the only one now.”

Olsen’s voice is an enchantment, leaving you parched and blinking hopelessly into the St Louis sun spilling through her rough-edged guitar riffs. Her lyrics are weighed with turmoilriddled emotions, with Olsen often clawing at her own heart as she whispers her worries into your ear.

‘White Noise’ is a sparse, echoing lament that has you shivering and lurching at the same time. “I laughed so loud inside myself/It all began to hurt,” she admits as the fragmented guitar cocoons you in this girl’s wandering journey.

‘Hi-Five’ is a stomping glam rock number, seeing Olsen share a friendly acknowledgment of loneliness with an unknowing stranger. And her innocent question “Are you lonely too?” is all bashful intrigue and fluttering eyelashes as you fall helplessly for her flailing dismissal.

The shadow of the 1980s looms particularly large on the third album of Brooklyn band Milagres, whose big drums and intricate synthesiser lines would make any Kate Bush devotee proud, a point of comparison, which strikes the listener most pointedly on recommended track ‘The Letterbomb’.

The fevers and pitch-black caves referenced in the penultimate track ‘Sunburn’ aptly summarise the entire album in one foul swoop.

There is an anthemic, almost hymnal quality, to a lot of the album in that sense. The subject matter dealt with here, whilst bold, is not necessarily always the brightest.

Nevertheless, the album’s second single ‘Jewelled Cave’ sees frontman Kyle Wilson channelling Nick Cave and Neil Hannon with a hook The Killers would once have murdered for, while ‘Urban Eunuchs’ has more than a trace of Bowie haunting the melody and drum line.

One of the album’s greatest faults is that it falls between the stools of synth-pop and indie. This would be tolerable were it not for the fact that an over-commercialised sheen mars several of the album’s finer tracks, such as ‘Terrifying Sea’, culminating in the inevitable comparisons to the chart-toppers of our day.

A scaling back in production values may have resulted in a more palatable sounding album, but this is not to deny the fact that the listening public will probably hear a lot more from Milagres in the near future.

Taking on a range of influences and melding them together with flourish, Champs do us the rare task of combining a multitude of sounds with an underlying, consistent ambience.

Critics have picked up on the melancholic nature of the album, which does much to complement their distinct quasi-folk like nature.

It may be a little slow for those more attuned to the pop and indie-rock infestations of today, but given time it excels, delights and draws you back in.

‘St Peters’ is a notable example in this regard; a delicate number that opens with a slowly plucked guitar, building into an appropriate level of ornamentation, devoid of bombast.

If ‘Down Like Gold’, the title track, leans on this atmosphere a bit too much, there are alternatives to display in the quicker paced ‘My Spirit Is Broken’ and ‘Savannah’.

‘Savanah’ is a stronger track in this sense, lending exuberance to an album which otherwise might have lacked energy and a suitable lead single. Its psych-pop drive, thankfully, does nothing to detract from the mood.

Layered with harmonies, grooves and slow-mid tempo songs, Down Like Gold will not appeal to everyone, but it will certainly distinguish itself from the crowd of bands trying to break through.

Morning Phase is appropriately set in the early hours of the morning, suggesting new beginnings for Beck after a five-year musical hibernation.

Despite this suggestion, Morning Phase is actually one of the few Beck albums to borrow from an earlier success. The album has been described as a companion piece to his 2002 release Sea Change and features many of the same musicians.

Sea Change dealt with the inconsolable aftermath of a failed relationship, while Morning Phase has a more optimistic and settled approach to relationships. The work doesn’t wallow in its own self-pity; it’s a more confident record of ambition.

The album’s palette is mixed expertly by Beck, who places three orchestral tracks among the albums acoustic ballads. Orchestral opener ‘Cycle’ sets the album’s tone perfectly, wavering somewhere in-between hope and unease before reaching a resolution.

Acoustic ballads ‘Morning, Say Goodbye’ and ‘Blue Moon’ continue this mixture of hope and regret with the aid of reverb-soaked vocals. Only the Radiohead-influenced ‘Wave’ succumbs completely to regret, with most songs pervading a deceitful assurance.

As per usual, Beck’s voice isn’t particularly emotional on any of these tracks. Rather than coming across as stiff, however, he instead sounds tastefully restrained.

Morning Phase isn’t concerned with immediacy.

It allows its tracks to build themselves up slowly so they can properly crescendo in inevitable hails of contemplative strings.

Burn Your Fire For No Witness

In A Nutshell No longer a distant figure, Olsen welcomes you into her world for a bare-all party of enveloping emotion and startling revelations.

Rebekah Rennick

Violent Light

In A Nutshell Several minor masterpieces hidden in an album that veers towards the excessive and overly polished.

Down Like Gold

In A Nutshell It doesn’t excite immediately, but gives Champs’ debut some patience and the result will be worthwhile.

Andrew Carolan

Stephen Heffernan

Morning Phase

In A Nutshell A surprisingly conventional return to form wrapped in an understated and optimistic package.

Ross McKeever

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Gartlandia— five Things I Learned on OrlaTour Gartland After wrapping up her first UK and Irish tour, that touring taught her

brings you five things

The best part of the tour was taking a moment each night to draw back from the mic and look out at the couple of hundred people that actually chose to leave their houses to hear me wail over my guitar

Last month I was lucky enough to head out and tour the UK & Ireland. With some band rehearsals tagged on the beginning, the end result was an ever-changing group of seven (some of us starting out to one another as complete strangers) traveling about the place playing shows for two weeks.

I’ve been gigging for years, but a tour like this was shiny and new to me. Like all pensive, misunderstood songwriters, I get a real kick out of drawing conclusions from experiences like this and hence I present to you 5 things touring taught me that I think are pretty applicable to life in general. Hey, ho, let’s go.

1) Food is amazing This truth isn’t earth-shattering, I know. But something about sitting in cars for hours on end and enduring stale pre-packed Tesco meal deal sambos really made me appreciate good, hearty food like never before.

One morning we flew from Birmingham to Belfast and, upon reaching the city, headed straight to a pub called Kelly’s Cellars. It was a postcard dream: a huge open fire, seanfhocail scribbled on the walls, old men in Aran jumpers and paddy caps that looked as if they’d been placed there just to complete the scene. We wolfed down huge bowls of hot stew and I’ve never felt happier.

2) Being open makes for the best conversations Small talk numbs the brain. When you’re given

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the chance in any scenario to spend hours in the company of a small group; people of different ages, from different places and various walks of life, it’d be an absolute crime not to make things interesting.

Dive straight in and pick their brains about everything and anything in life. For me the tour definitely hammered home the value in being a little vulnerable and opening up for the sake of honest discussion. Boom.

3) Alone time is underrated I’m a social being I guess, but at the same time I enjoy my own company. The friends I was lucky enough to bring on tour are the biggest legends I know. We crammed into jammed-packed cars and family-sized hotel rooms, and as we traveled from England to Scotland to Ireland, we were around one another pretty much 24/7.

As you can imagine the craic was mighty and spirits were high, but after a few days of constant company, I think everyone cries out a little for a few minutes of silence; some time to clear your headspace. That said, once the tour ended and we all parted ways, I was hit with a horrid wave of loneliness and immediately wanted everyone to come back. THE MIND IS A FUNNY THING.

4) Positivity is infectious Freelance or creative disciplines like music and art often seem to have so little structure, but touring feels like an exception. Like so many other things in life touring has it’s tedious, unavoidable daily

necessities. You make your way to the venue, you load in at your given load-in time, soundcheck at your given soundcheck time etc. After the shows stack up, the days blur together and necessities like this can grind on your gears if you’re not in the best of moods.

Stupid jokes are key; anything to keep the giggles comin’. Some people just seem to just radiate positivity. Surround yourself with more of that kind and bad moods stand no chance.

5) Sanity comes from pausing to appreciate I’m fully aware of how tragic and cheesy this sounds.

The best part of the tour was taking a moment each night to draw back from the mic and look out at the couple of hundred people that actually chose to leave their houses to hear me wail over my guitar.

As it went on, I found myself zoning out at other times to appreciate my saint of a dad driving my guitars up rom Dublin to Belfast, to appreciate school friends sacrificing nights out to come watch my set, to appreciate absolutely ace musicians willing to play on songs I wrote, to appreciate anyone at all that would put up with me!

I’m not generally one for the motivational stuff so I’ll keep it snappy; no matter what you do in life I’m pretty convinced that taking moments to appreciate all the little things is what keeps us sane, keeps us focused, keeps us humble. Otherwise you’ll blink and all the good times will have sailed over your head!

Ok, enough mush. Back to cynical Orla.

Radar— September Girls Lauren Kerchner of September Girls chats to Rachel Meagher about influences, creative processes and the helping hand of past experiences

All-girl band September Girls, hailing from Dublin, are no strangers to the local music scene.

We’ve all had ups and And it seems their familiarity, built through their downs in our previous own experiences, has been a crucial aspect of the musical endeavours, formula for their success.

Described as “lots of distortion, lists of reverb, but I think we can harmonies, organs and really loud drums”, all say we learned September Girls are a band with a broad musical mix that renders up an appetising dish of sunsomething valuable drenched vocals and sweltering guitars. “Paula, that we can bring to Caoimhe, Jessie and I are all old friends,” explains Lauren Kerchner. “When Paula met Sarah through September Girls another project and suggested she drum with us, it turned out that she was a perfect fit”.

This quintet’s CV is one of musical pedigree. Some may recognise similar voices and faces from previous band Talulah Does the Hula. With no member a stranger to the music industry, this has improved and layered their current efforts.

“Every experience you have teaches you something that you carry forward,” says Kerchner.

“We’ve all had ups and downs in our previous musical endeavours, but I think we can all say we learned something valuable that we can bring to September Girls. Whether it be songwriting skills, experience with instruments, or gaining knowledge of the more business-y side of things.”

September Girls, plucking their name from a Big Star track, are a mix of dark, edgy garage rock, nearly simmering into garage noir. “We want our songs to sound a bit like pop tunes that have been swirled in a hoover for a while,” explains Kerchner. “While our songs are quite grounded in pop with regard to structure and melody, we try to depart from pop sensibility by adding layers of noise.”

Meanwhile, past experiences have helped to mould their current creative and writing processes.

“Everyone in the band writes songs, so each song comes from a feeling or situation that person is going through at the time. I think we’ve all had some tumultuous times in the last couple of years, so those experiences definitely informed the music as we progressed through writing the album.”

Cursing the Sea, their debut album, is the swelling conceptus of two years of writing and finetuning the grunge-infused pop sound for which these five women are rapidly becoming known.

Release of singles such as ‘Heartbeats’ meant the album was the natural next step for the band.

With a dark, loud underbody to the sugar coated pop formula; the result is a refreshing rawness.

The amalgamation is clear from the influences pulled by the band. “We all have such different and eclectic taste that inspiration comes from all over. I generally tend to be a ‘yesteryear’ kind of person, but I’m always on the lookout for a great new pop song to get me excited and make me dance.”

Mixing old and new, moulding together influences, and being an all-girl band to boot, the female musical revolution is undoubtedly upon us with the September Girls.

To listen to September Girls’ latest 12-track LP, Cursing The Sea, go to http://soundcloud.com/ septembergirls

street style

Jamie Mann Studying Sociology & Economics

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Wearing: Shirt – Vintage shop, Shoes – Nike, trousers – Penneys, Knitted Jumper – River Island, bag – bought at a reggae festival in California.

Style Inspiration: London street style.

Biggest bargain: An oversized shirt from Fresh Temple Bar for €15.

Most expensive purchase: Barber jacket €200.

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1 Paul Dowling Geography & Planning Shoes – TKmax, Trousers – Zara, jumper – TK maxx Jacket – Charity shop, Scarf – H&M, Bag – Mango Belt – Handmade by mother Fashion Inspiration: Hipsters

2 Hannah Nirhian Actuarial & Financial studies Shoes – Massimo Dutti, Shirt – H&M, Polo – Zara Bag – Longchamp, Coat – Zara (sister’s) Fashion Inspiration: Whatever is in the wardrobe

3 Laura Farrelly Nursing Shoes – Converse, Trousers – Topshop, T-shirt – Penneys Jacket – Topshop, Bag –Topshop Fashion Inspiration: Topshop and Cara Delevingne 4 Katy McDermot Science Shoes – Timberland, Leggings – Topshop, Bag – Scaramanga Coat – Topshop, Knit – River Island Fashion Inspiration: Comfort 4 Eoghan Talbot Irish & Geography Shoes – Topman, coat – Topman, Jeans – River Island, T-shirt – Vintage, Bag – Adidas, Watch – Rolex Fashion Inspiration: High street words Emily Mullen Photographs Rory Mullen

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On the ball With Ball season in full swing, this issue’s shoot demonstrates the ease at which a hoody-jean bedecked student can transform themselves into a Cinderella, with two shoes of course

Indigo backless Dress – Covet - 3-Day Hire €185, Platform Shoes - River Island - €75, Gold metallic clutch - Dublin Vintage Factory - €25, Earrings – Zara - €20

Pink Valentino Dress - Covet- 3-Day Hire €165, Fur Stole – Shutterbug - €75, necklace - River Island - €30, Bangle - River Island - €17, Ring-Asos - €7, Court shoes - River Island €40

The launch of the spring/summer 2014 designer collections saw the soft sighs of floral prints, sheerstructured nudes, gypsy patchworks and autumnal colour palettes blossoming across the catwalks. In the midst of these innovative print designs, there’s a return to more classic silhouettes and cuts to formal wear this coming season.

This rejuvenation of classic cuts teemed with inventive print is perfectly reflected in the stunning, rose-flushed Valentino dress resting on Hannah’s embonpoint frame. This dress represents a fresh take on the traditional maxi-length of the formal dress, with a distinctly tapered waist but soft, form-fitting material. Its feminine line is accentuated by the large, clear crystal jewellery pieces and the high-held hairstyle. The shortness of the hem offers a distinctly vintage take on the immovably classic formalwear get-up.

The traditional floor-length gown isn’t to be dismissed out of hand, though. The remnants of the jewel-toned winter palette is echoed in the cool indigo-ink, backless dress contouring Rebecca’s willowy form. The jewel detailing around the midriff allows the waist to appear cinched in place, but the looseness of the material assures the wearer extreme comfort and ease of movement. The

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intricate detailing of the gown is easily accessorised simply by adding chunky earrings and a simple clutch.

The ice-white supremacy of the peplum gown modelled by Hannah is the perfect winter-spring transitionary gown. It can be worn as a tribute to both seasons, the purity of winter-snow or the primordial freshness of spring, and the peplumlayered fringe adds a modern-twist to this classically high-necked ensemble. The careful detailing of the bodice is met with a time-honoured up-do, ornamented with a stylish hairpiece that adds a sense of vintage-grace to the outfit.

Perhaps the highlight of each of these dresses is their availability. Each dress is available for hire from Covet for three days and can be paired with a multitude of accessories, unique to your own sense of style. The entrancing simplicity of each gown allows the natural beauty of the wearer to shine through and the current catwalk trend of dark, romantic lips and smoky eyes in metallic blacks and greys almost seem to gather the spring-dawn mists to the wearers’ effervescent beauty.

Lucy Coffey

#winning or #binning #winning

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#binning

Hombre Hair

On MEN, a la Bruce Jenner and Jared Leto. #Question? #Whatisevenhappening

Tummy tickling lows

Shirts and dresses as seen on Amy Adams from American Hustle. #thatbellycleavage #T.R.ending

1990s Accessories

The shades, the braids, the chockers, if only we had the foresight not to bin em’ all. #Notetoselfsavetackystuffinfuture

Being frugal

Cutting up old primer, foundation containers and coating your face for a week with the contents. #itcostsalottolookthisfab #DavidMcWilliamswouldbeproud

One-Shoulder Straps More often than not the tackiest design ever made. #bilge #vom #obscene #RIPaesthetics #myeyes #craptack #stopthemadness

White Peplum Dress – Covet - 3-Day Hire €185, Strappy Heels - River Island - €50, Hairpiece – Asos - €14.50 Make-up Assistant: Kine Good Stylist: Christin McWeeney Models: Hannah Durkan and Rebecca Durkan Photographer: James Brady

Twosies

Two-piece, twinsets, call them what you will, but they are one of the most versatile trends that have been thrown at us in recent months. #Bitchin #Iwasinthe212

Vintage Shop prices

It’s never been so expensive to look like you paid nothing. €40 for a jumper that you cleaved off a dead person, really? #kantkopewontkope

LOGOMANIA

It’s back and it’s bad. Scrawled across everything from bags to bras, it’s unavoidable. #popartsfarts #graphicvomit

Non-Functional iPhone covers Double Buns

Another double act, think Bjork or Gwen Stefani circa 1995, centre parting with messy buns either end is absolutely. #trendstoppable

Sure having a tyrannosaurus rex shaped cover looks quirky and appears to be a talking point, when it comes to the realities of answering the phone or putting the phone in your pocket, it becomes a completely different conversation starter. #silly

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Culture Woulfe National Gallery of Ireland— Governors, Guardians, Artists

Express yourself Claire Hennessy, co-founder and director of Big Smoke Writing Factory, talks to Rebecca Coyle about how the creative writing centre got started and what supports it offers for aspiring writers

With the National Gallery of Ireland celebrating its sesquicentennial year, Laura Woulfe revisits its illustrious past through its most recent exhibition There is often a tendency for people today to consider their national cultural institutions, such as the National Gallery of Ireland, as being somewhat stuffy and elitist in their organisation and in their choice of exhibitions.

With the 150th anniversary of the National Gallery of Ireland being celebrated this year, it is not surprising that the gallery is hosting three new exhibitions that trace its foundations and its development over the last century and a half, From the Archives, Care of the Collection, and the focus of this article, Governors, Guardians, Artists.

Even though there is always the prospective danger in self-commemorating state exhibitions to pretentiously over indulge on their influence on artists and the national cultural sphere, Governors, Guardians, Artists adopts an alternative and refreshing approach by focusing on the influence of artists on the development of the National Gallery of Ireland.

The history of Irish art since 1864 is a noble one and the history of the National Gallery of Ireland mirrors this in the exhibition. Unlike other national museums such as the Musée du Louvre, the National Gallery of Ireland has never used its collection as a means of national propaganda. Rather, it is highlighted in the exhibition how the fundamental aim of the gallery was to try and capture the national spirit of Ireland.

As is said in the exhibition, one of the founding board members and 19th century artist, George Petrie, simply wanted to correct “the perception of Ireland as an uncivilised race”, which was common in the 19th century. Whereas later, Sean Keating, another leading Irish artist and gallery board member, introduced the acquisition of living artists Unlike other national early on in the gallery’s establishment. museums such as the The problem of the Musée du Louvre, the acquisition of living artists’ works into National Gallery of national museums, however, has resurfaced in Ireland has never used recent decades and even in its collection as a means the National Gallery of Ireland, the amount of 21st century art of national propaganda work exhibited in the gallery is minimal. This said, the exhibition does begin from the present and work its way backwards to its foundation.

Beginning with works from contemporary living artists and current gallery board members, James Hanley and Martin Gale, the exhibition then leads onto works by Sean Keating, Evie Hone, and Jack B. Yeats. This is followed later with works by John Lavery and Nathaniel Hone, the backwards travel in time commemorates the past, yet very much focuses the position of the gallery in the present.

This is a reminder of the promise that the National Gallery of Ireland retains when considering the future of Irish art.

National Gallery of Ireland, Governors, Guardians, Artists, free admission, closes on May 11th

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There’s so much out there in Dublin and beyond for aspiring writers, but sometimes you need something to help you connect to it The group holds social events such as their It started off as a very simple concept; that Literary Cafes, which Hennessy believes are an young aspiring writers deserve a chance to “opportunity for people to mingle and meet others succeed and should have a support network in place to ensure they can reach their potential. This interested in writing.” They also organise flash fiction readings, “which came about when Flash idea came to life in the form of the Big Smoke Fiction Day developed in the UK a couple of years Writing Factory. back. [Big Smoke is] very into flash fiction as a form A hub of creative endeavour, classes and anyway, and it really lends itself to readings.” workshops are run for writers looking to develop Big Smoke have opened submissions for flash their skills. The classes are “run by writers for fiction readings to a wider audience. Hennessy feels writers”, according to the group’s website. it is a useful method of drawing in more writers Claire Hennessy, co-founder and director of Big that may not necessarily be taking their classes, but Smoke Writing Factory, explains that the project want to show off their work. began “when a group of teaching writers got “It’s helped us connect with people who aren’t together and talked about setting up their own necessarily taking workshops with us but who are writing school.” developing their own writing and producing really The distinctive and quirky name being the decent stuff. There’s so much out there in Dublin product of brainstorming. “We wanted something and beyond for aspiring writers, but sometimes you that related to Dublin and writing” and thought of the phrase “‘the big smoke’, or ‘the big schmoke’ as need something to help you connect to it.

“Right now we’re preparing for our Flash those outside Dublin say.”

Fiction Day again this year, and we’re constantly Hennessy says that they identified the need developing new courses and workshops,” says for “a centralised space where we could pool our resources and support each other in the teaching of Hennessy. “We’d like at some point to produce an anthology of student work, and we’re also hoping creative writing” in Dublin. to collaborate with a couple of other organisations Big Smoke offers a wide range of creative on projects. Dublin has a very rich arts and culture writing courses and workshops for all levels, scene and there are many opportunities out there.” ranging from beginners upwards, as well as a Located in Temple Bar, Big Smoke Writing few specialist workshops; such as playwriting and Factory will be having a Writing Fest day in March poetry. These are ten-week courses that cover where they will be open to anyone who would like “getting inspiration, getting started and key issues to drop in. With resources and events like this at like character development, story, language, etc.” their disposal, it seems like there is no better time to They also hold one-day courses that are in specialist areas such as commercial, fiction, memoir be an aspiring writer in Dublin than right now. and screenwriting. These also include publishing seminars to provide information for anyone thinking For more information check out of getting their work published. www.bigsmokewritingfactory.com

Fatal Fourway

Most wooden Kristen Stewart performance Sarah Altman—Panic Room Emily Longworth Amid the many unconvincing aspects of the film Panic Room, which is every aspect of the film Panic Room, it is possible that the least convincing of all performances is that given by the plank of wood purporting to be Jodie Foster’s tomboy diabetic daughter throughout.

Aside from the crudely drawn frowny-face on to the board’s surface, there is not a singular ounce of emotion conveyed in its timbers, as they refuse to be shivered. Carried underarm by Foster for the entirety of the film, this is perhaps the least Kristen Stewart performance ever delivered by Plank of Wood.

And being the least believable feature of the

film is quite a feat; there’s a whole wealth of bogus cinematography in Panic Room for that wooden board to compete with.

Case in point, the team of goons who break into the house in search of hidden dolla dolla billz start by upending their bag of ‘Tools For Breaking & Entering™’ on the kitchen table. This seems like a hugely inefficient way of handling their big bag of crime tools. Are they just really impatient to rob a bag of loot and later upend that bag of loot to purvey said loot?

Undoubtedly in one of her earliest roles, Plank of Wood gives the undisputed worst performance of the film, and of Kristen Stewart’s career.

Jess—The Messengers Steven Balbirnie I must confess that I’ve only actually ever seen one Kristen Stewart film and it was the rather rubbish 2007 supernatural horror The Messengers. What really stood out in this dull guide to why no one should choose to live in North Dakota, however, is that her performance is more wooden than a Georgian chiffonier.

Stewart stars as a sulky problematic teenager whose family moves to a rundown rural hellhole that just so happens to be haunted, to grow sunflowers. The premise may be awful, but what is remarkable is how stoic and impassive Stewart remains throughout the entirety of a horror film.

Where other leading ladies would scream and cry

when faced by the ghosts of dead children or flocks of demonic crows, Stewart merely looks like she’s always vaguely surprised or slightly unimpressed by what’s going on. In one scene where she’s mauled by several ghosts, she looks almost bored. Stewart is most concerned whenever they touch her hair, seemingly more bothered about how her hair looks rather than if she might die horribly.

She even seems barely concerned when she’s being chased by a murderous farmer brandishing a pitchfork. In fact she’d be the perfect partner in a horror scenario due to her being completely incapable of feeling fear no matter what terrors she encounters.

Em Lewin—Adventureland Jack Walsh It seems, yet again, it is left to myself to be the sweet, wholesome one here at Fourway HQ. My buddies here are going to argue that Kristen Stewart is a “cold, emotionless husk of a creature that is vile and Twilight should have never happened and how could she kill Jack Kerouac’s vision like that?” (Imagine that voice getting higher as you read that sentence). Instead, I aim to prove that in fact, rather than an emery board of emotions, Kristen Stewart is actually a Hollywood criminal mastermind on the level of Harvey Weinstein.

For one, let’s get this simple economic calculation out of the way. Everyone going to a Kristen Stewart movie is going to boo her and love any other barely sentient being on screen.

Adventureland is a perfect example of this. What could have been a sweet, awkward love triangle of smushy love became physically and mentally gruelling. The movie had Ryan Reynolds and Jesse Eisenberg. That right there is the master of hot awkwardness and cute awkwardness on one screen, and Stewart’s inclusion meant that it all fell apart.

Maybe Kristen Stewart’s emotional repertoire in the part of her brain labelled ‘How to act’ got deleted or something, in which case it’s time to return that girl to factory settings and start again.

Anyway, she’s still lucky because Hollywood is full of attractive bubbly down to earth types, and Stewart has nailed the slightly pale emo chick stereotype.

Apparently that’s where the money is, right?

Bella Swan—Twilight Laura Bell While Kristen Stewart’s filmography as a whole is undoubtedly a long, drawn out, and joyless narrative, her performance in The Twilight Saga in 2008 is ground zero for a series of increasingly diabolical performances. The beginning of the end, if you will.

It’s true that Twilight is ultimately an ironically bloodless, perverse teen soap opera, and that Bella Swan is a clumsy, socially inept crime against all women. It’s also true that any post-pubescent who can get so fully behind this level of insipid dry humping with nary a varied facial expression in sight is either pure, wanton evil or just profoundly

vacant. Realistically, it may prove a toss up between the two for K-Stew.

While allowing your boyfriend to mime ripping a demon foetus out of your chronically toneless body with his teeth has got to be indicative of something sinister at work, you really do have to applaud her.

She has made a career out of lip biting, looking constipated, and being physically, perhaps medically, unable to deliver a single line of dialogue convincingly.

The best-case scenario here is that Stewart just really likes money and has figured out how to get it without expending any effort whatsoever. Now there’s a skill.

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The Back Page “Mickey Rourke was cool, he called me a ‘good looking C-UN-T’ and Robin Thicke said ‘really, really cool good looking guy” Siva Kaneswaran of The Wanted reveals his favourite compliments

“It seems like the only time you get a minute to yourself is if you’re on the toilet or you’re asleep” George Ezra talks about getting time to himself on tour

“I dug out all my dad’s spanners, I put them in order of pitch, and I kind of fashioned myself a xylophone” Julie Hawk on her first instrument

512

The number of votes that the Prohibition Party garnered in the 2012 US presidential elections. Founded in 1869, they are the oldest party in the US outside of the traditional big two

85,078

The number of people playing Twitch Plays Pokemon when AA-j (aka Zapdos, aka Battery Jesus) used thundershock to defeat Blastoise in the final battle against their arch enemy, Blue

crazy pokémon fan art of the week if you have a photo you’d like to enter into photo of the week, send your submissions to design@universityobserver.ie

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23,505 The time, in minutes, it took Twitch members to complete Pokémon Red

sudoku