Give Her Up To The Gods

This week has seen Cork play host to the inaugural Solstice Festival, an offshoot of the Cork Midsummer Festival.

As part of the festival, Dublin-based performance colective Come As Soon As You Hear have teamed up with the festival organisers to present Human Sacrifice, an evening of DJs, dancing and virgin bloodshed this Sunday 19th of June.

Kicking off at 10pm at Murphy's Midsummer Nights at The Spiegeltent, the event will see a pretty young virgin pay the ultimate price as a gesture of gratitude to The Gods for a bountiful harvest.

Dress to distress and don't forget your dancing shoes as DJs Conor Behan and Joey Kavanagh will be soundtracking the slaying with a palette of pagan electropop. Tickets available here.

How Stella Got Her Groove Back

A few months back, I raved about Bristol singer Florrie after I made a last minute decision to catch her playing in the intimate surrounds of Dublin's Academy 2.

Since then, I've had her debut EP, Introduction, on heavy rotation (it's available as a free download from her site here). Her electro-infused top shelf pop reminds of the better output of Girls Aloud and Annie and her novel approach to releasing her music, turning down label offers in favour of financing herself with the benefit of endorsements and corporate collaborations, is really intriguing.

A follow-up EP, Experiments, is due next week. I wasn't entirely sold on the first track, the autotune-heavy Begging Me but, this morning, The Guardian posted a new track, Experimenting With Rugs.

A melancholy mid-tempo number, laced with delicious hooks and underpinned by Florrie's deft drumwork, it reaffirms my suspicions that Florrie is a pop messiah, come to save us all.

Experimenting With Rugs by Florrie

Begging Me by Florrie

Stuck On Repeat: Born To Do It Edition

Mr Little Jeans - The Suburbs (Arcade Fire Cover)



SBTRKT - Wildfire (featuring Little Dragon)



Caribou - Sun (Pyramid Remix)



Hudson Mohawke - Thunder Bay



Logo x Icona Pop - Luvsick



The Weeknd - Rolling Stone



Get People - Away

Not That Happiness Is Dull. Only That It Doesn't Tell Well.

I've started reading again recently, after a bit of a drought. My plan is to pester friends and family for their favourite books and attempt to read a book a week over the summer. At the moment, I'm reading Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez, as suggested by my sister, but if I run out of suggestions I'd like to revisit Lionel Shriver's We Need To Talk About Kevin at some point.

A macabre tale that centres on a woman's strained relationship with her eldest son, the book is one of my all-time favourites and I'm really excited about the imminent film adaptation starring Tilda Swinton.

It's not being released until September, but reports from its recent premiere at Cannes have been overwhelmingly positive and, after watching the teaser trailers, I'm near convinced that this is going to be the movie event of 2011.

South By South West

Come As Soon As You Hear, the creative collective/pack of dossers I'm involved in, are very excited to announce our involvement in Solstice, a brand new initiative being run as part of the Cork Midsummer Festival this month.

The mini festival, organised by four young arts enthusiasts, will run from the 16th to the 19th of June and will showcase work by over 150 emerging artists in the fields of music, dance, theatre and visual art descend. Transforming the Old FAS Building in the heart of Cork city into a pop-up venue, Solstice will include over 30 performances and will run from 10am to 10pm each day.

We will be debuting a new show, Spurt, devised by Karl Watson and Dan Colley, as well as helping to liven up the festival's top secret closing party with something we've been working on for a few weeks. Check out the full programme here.

Solstice is an exciting new venture and, if you fancy doing your bit to help with proceedings, you can donate to their current Fund It campaign here.

Solstice from Solstice on Vimeo.