One of the finest British rock acts to have enjoyed worldwide success over the last few decades, The Cult has wrapped up recording ‘Choice of Weapon’,

THE CULT TO RELEASE NEW STUDIO ALBUM

2012 World Tour Details Coming Soon

One of the finest British rock acts to have enjoyed worldwide success over the last few decades, The Cult has wrapped up recording ‘Choice of Weapon’, the group’s first studio album in five years.  Released on 21^st May 2012 in UK (and May 18^th in Ireland) on their new UK label Cooking Vinyl, its 10 tracks reveal the band at its rawest and most visceral, encapsulating cinematic visions and themes of love, revolt, and redemption.   Fans can get an early taster of the album from 2pm on Tuesday 31^st January when the track ‘Lucifer’ will be available as a free download through the band’s website www.thecult.us.  Details are being confirmed for a worldwide tour and will be announced soon.

‘Choice of Weapon’ is the follow up to the critically-acclaimed 2007 release ‘Born Into This’ that the UK’s Mojo magazine called “a wholehearted, utopian and irrefutably exciting record.”  Long-time Cult collaborator and producer Bob Rock (Metallica, Bush) – who produced one of The Cult’s most successful albums, the platinum-certified ‘Sonic Temple’ – put the finishing touches on the foundations that were laid by co-producer Chris Goss (Queens of the Stone Age, U.N.K.L.E., Masters of Reality).

The record was written by Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy, recorded in New York City, Los Angeles, the California high desert, and the band’s Witch Mountain studios in the Hollywood Hills between July and December 2011.  The new release features founding members Astbury on vocals and Duffy on guitars, with drummer John Tempesta and bassist Chris Wyse.  “We have had the opportunity to work with two of the most influential and talented producers in the world today,” said Astbury.  “They pushed us beyond our comfort zone, and helped us craft ‘Choice of Weapon.’”

The album is aimed at the heart of The Cult’s loyal following.  It reflects the current discontent and destruction of our eco systems, the search for individual meaning against a tide of rampant materialism, narcissism and disconnected lives.  “We went deeper . . . we worked a bit harder on this record.  We have great fans and they deserve our best,” added Duffy, “and I feel this is one of our best records, maybe the best.”

The album is released as a special edition fan pack on May 14^th, followed by digital and double vinyl on May 21^st (May 18^th in Ireland) and the CD and deluxe CD’s on June 4^th (June 1^st in Ireland) .

The tracklisting is as follows:

Honey from a Knife / Elemental Light / The Wolf / Life > Death / For The Animals

Amnesia / Wilderness Now / Lucifer / A Pale Horse / This Night In The City Forever

Bonus CD tracks:

Every Man And Woman Is A Star / Embers / Until The Light Takes Us / Siberia

Follow The Cult:             

Official Web Site – http://www.thecult.us/

Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/officialcult

Twitter – @THE_CULT_ NYC

ATTACHED PR PHOTO:

The Cult, 2012

Photo Credit:  Michael Lavine

LEFT TO RIGHT:  Billy Duffy, Chris Wyse, Ian Astbury, John Tempesta

Irish PR Contact: Linda Coogan Byrne

Reverend & The Makers

31^st January 2012

Announce Noel Gallagher arena supports, free download and new label.

Reverend & The Makers have announced a string of support shows with Noel Gallagher in February and March which will be preceded by a free download taken from the band’s as yet untitled new album, scheduled for release in April /May 2012. The download will available from RATM facebook and will go live on Friday 10th February.

The album, which is currently being mixed in London, was recorded in Sheffield and London produced by Youth (The Verve/U2), Jason Cox/James Dring (Gorillaz, Professor Green) and RATM.

The band has also signed a new worldwide record deal with Cooking Vinyl, home of The Prodigy and Marilyn Manson.

Noel Gallagher Support Dates:

13-Feb                                    Manchester MEN arena

14-Feb                                    Aberdeen PJ Arena

19-Feb                                    Sheffield Motorpoint Arena

24-Feb                                    Glasgow SECC Hall 4

26-Feb                                    London The O2 Arena

01-Mar                                    Birmingham NIA

All Tickets Available From www.seetickets.com

 A Message from The Rev…

So we’ve been away for a minute. Well more than a minute. Truth be said I fancied a bit of time out the bear-pit for half an hour to get myself a bit of a holiday, and well, calm the fuck down n enjoy myself a bit. Not that I sat completely on my arse for the best part of two years. Errrr…. (I’ve kind of forgot what you’re supposed to talk about in a post even though I decided to write one!!!)

I’ve been a few mad places in Asia, Africa and South America, which was unbelievable. I bought some daft instruments while I was away too, none of which I can play but they look right good in my house. I did a bit more with Afrika Express. If you don’t know what it is then check it out at www.africaexpress.co.uk. It’s a thing Damon Albarn set up and it’s fuckin’ amazing. I did a little gig with Mick Jones from The Clash at The Leadmill and I got up and sang ‘Bankrobber’ with him, which was a proper buzz. Mostly though, I had a sound system with my mates Jimmy Welsh and Matic Mouth which was mega. We threw house parties and warehouse parties, and generally got daft doing parties for nish, until we got a bit too daft and the police started turning up to every do we had, so we knocked that on the head and I decided I might fancy getting back to the day job…

I just kind of fell into writing this album by accident and the next thing was it was nearly finished. I’m bang into it, which you’ll all expect me to say. But I enjoyed making it more than any album I’ve made so far. It’s all up and mainly bangers, so we had a right old laugh in the process. Special thanks go to Ed the Pilot and Jimmy and his Onkens. The album is being produced by a combination of Jason Cox and James Dring (Gorrrilaz, Good the Bad & the Queen) and Youth (The Verve, U2), and for what it’s worth there’s no politics on the album. Why not? Well as much as I’m into all that and I still believe much the same, I’ve said it now and it quickly becomes boring if you labor the point too much. In truth I sort of bored myself with it. I’ve taken down the Che Guevara poster for this album; you may or may not be glad to know. So we have some new band members who have joined as well. Ryan Jenkinson on drums who used to play with a band I used to be into called This Girl. On bass we have borrowed Joe Carnall from the Book Club. Check them out they are ace (www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-Carnall-The-Book-Club). Joe was the singer in Milburn, who were the band that kinda kicked off the Sheffield thing a few years ago, so I’m made up to have them both play with us.

The album’s out before the summer and will be preceded by a tour supporting Noel Gallagher on his arena dates around the UK. We are well looking forward to it, and hope we’ll see you there. If not I hope you might catch us on our own headline tour later in the year…

Nice one, ta for reading and good to be back. The Rev x

Social Networks:

http://www.facebook.com/ReverendAndTheMakers 

http://twitter.com/jonmcclure

www.iamreverend.com  / www.cookingvinyl.com

In a closely run battle, we can now reveal that The Prodigy have emerged victorious, pipping robotic legends, Daft Punk, into second place by a very tight margin.

The band; Liam Howlett, Keith Flint and Maxim Reality beat off competition from French duo Daft Punk.

Keith Flint of The Prodigy commented: “To walk off a stage and feel like we smashed it – that’s the reward for us, to see the crowd react and know we’ve done what we’ve come to do. But something like this is truly voted for by the people – and essentially we are nothing without them, so it feels awesome and really respectful.”

Mixmag offered their congratulations to The Prodigy, ‘an act who have managed to stay as exciting as ever, over two decades on from their first gig’.

The full results are published in the latest issue of Mixmag, on sale today (Thursday January 19) with comment from all the acts in the top 20. You can grab an iPad/iPhone version here

Speaking of the win, Flint said:”Mixmag is the magazine. It’s what everyone looks to. It’s been around ever since we’ve been around, too, so it must be doing something right.”

Reality said: “People like to see a performance that ignites the crowd. We stay true to that and I think they respect it.”

While, Mixmag editor Nick DeCosemo added: “The response to the poll exceeded our wildest expectations and The Prodigy’s victory is a wonderful tribute to the passion that they generate in dance music fans everywhere… and the amazing way they have managed to stay just as exciting as ever, over two decades since their first gig.

“The Prodigy have been around almost as long as Mixmag and hopefully we are both still at the top of our respective game.”

Meanwhile, The Prodigy are set to debut new tracks from their as-yet-untitled sixth album when they headline Download Festival later this year.

The band will headline the event along with Metallica and Black Sabbath  at Donington Park from June 8-10 2012.

The full Top 20 was as follows:

1. The Prodigy
2. Daft Punk
3. The Chemical Brothers
4. Faithless
5. Deadmau5
6. Plastikman
7. Underworld ( well done to Underworld too! )
8. Fatboy Slim
9. Orbital
10. Moby
11. Leftfield
12. Kraftwerk
13. Pendulum
14. Depeche Mode
15. Justice
16. Basement Jaxx
17. Groove Armada
18. The Shamen
19. Above & Beyond
20. The KLF

A Plastic Rose are delighted to announce that they will be supporting Snow Patrol on two of their upcoming Tour Dates in Belfast & London.

The band issued this statement :

“We’re delighted to announce that Snow Patrol have asked us to support them in 2 arena’s on their forthcoming tour, Belfast’s Odyssey Arena Wed Jan 25th and London’s O2 Arena Sat Feb 11th. As you can imagine we’re over the moon and really hope that there’s some APR fans in the crowd screaming us on.

APR x”

Tickets can be bought here.

A Plastic Rose deliver their “nu-wave-disco-grunge-old-skool-emo” with a passion and intensity forged by their apprenticeship of gigging anytime, anywhere, with and to anyone, a philosophy that has led to them sharing stages with acts as diverse as Frank Turner, Explosions In The Sky, Fightstar, And So I Watch You From Afar and Fighting With Wire, picking up fans in Charlie Simpson (Fightstar – “Irelands best up and coming band at the moment”) and Gary Lightbody (giving them a mention in his list of N.Irish bands to look for) establishing a growing core support across Ireland with on-going touring and being recognised as one of the coming forces in music.

Now signed to DiDiMau Records, and fuelled by addictions to videogames, celebrities and functional sculpture, APR are poised to take on the world even if it’s not ready.  Mid March is the planned release date of the 1st single from their debut album through label Di Di Mau and Third Bar. The song is the album opener ‘Build From The Ground Up’ and will only be available to buy as a very limited CD. The album title will be announced very soon.

Press Release:

The National Concert Hall have announced the official unveiling of a portrait of Eleanor McEvoy by the acclaimed Irish artist ‘Robert Ballagh’ in the John Field Room in The National Concert Hall, Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2 on Friday January 20 2012 at 5.30 pm.

Robert ‘Bobby’ Ballagh is particularly well known for his hyperealistic renderings of well-known Irish literary, historical or establishment figures. His painting style was strongly influenced by pop art. Among the theatre sets he has designed are sets for Riverdance, I’ll Go On, Gate Theatre (1985), Samuel Beckett’s Endgame (1991) and Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (1998). He has also designed over 70 Irish postage stamps and the last series of Irish banknotes, “Series C”, before the introduction of the euro. He is a member of Aosdána. Ballagh’s paintings are held in several public collections of Irish painting including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Hugh Lane Gallery, the Ulster Museum, Trinity College Dublin, and Nuremberg’s Albrecht Durer House. One of his latest pieces is a privately commissioned portrait of a woman and artist whom Ballagh has the utmost respect for: Eleanor McEvoy.

Eleanor McEvoy’s music has evolved and developed over her career maintaining a serene confident statement that she is the master of her craft. As a globally acclaimed and much celebrated songwriter and composer, her music has been used in US, International and Irish TV and film. She also is one of a very limited amount of Irish Artists to get into the US Top 10 Billboard Charts (Precious Little). She also wrote the winsome ‘Only A Woman’s Heart’, which appeared on the massively popular album “A Woman’s Heart”. Eleanor also performed with the National Symphony Orchestra as a violinist for 4 years and is delighted that The NCH will be holding the Portrait on view in the John Field room for the next few years.

“The National Concert Hall is the ideal home for a portrait by one of Ireland’s finest painters of one of our leading musicians. We are delighted that our walls can be graced by a work by Robert Ballagh, just as Eleanor McEvoy has graced our stage”- N.C.H CEO Simon Taylor

For further information please contact:

Linda Coogan Byrne @ linda@goodseedpr.com

0851659065 / 01-6813496

 The Prodigy announce Warrior’s Dance Festival 2012

Kalemegdan Fortress, Belgrade, Serbia 15.09.12

The Prodigy and special guest Skrillex

Plus more acts to be announced

 The Prodigy are proud to present the next instalment of their ‘Warrior’s Dance Festival’ at Kalemegdan Fortess in Belgrade on September 15^th 2012.

Following the success of the inaugural event at Makuhari Messe, Tokyo, back in 2009 to the dizzy heights and rave reviews of 2010’s 65,000 capacity extravaganza at Milton Keynes Bowl, UK, the foundations have firmly been set to take the experience to Eastern Europe and to raise the bar once more for the Serbian people.

Serbia and The Prodigy have a special longstanding relationship which began with the band’s first performance in 1995 to a sold out hungry crowd, creating a story that goes down in urban myth where they were granted the key to the city of Belgrade (which they soon lost!). Invited to play at Serbia’s Exit festival’s 10th anniversary voted for by the Serbian public, 2012 sees the band curate and perform at Warrior’s Dance Festival in Belgrade.

The event will feature an eclectic and innovative bill based around a music policy favouring heavy beats and heavy guitars. Co-promoted by the team behind the prestigious Exit Festival, Warrior’s Dance Festival, promises to provide a spectrum of entertainment and performances across three stages featuring a mighty headline slot from The Prodigy, showcasing new material for 2012 and very special guest Skrillex  – arguably the hottest new act on the planet today! Local support comes in the form of crossover hard-core reggae act Eyesburn, punk rock bands Goblini & Ritam Nereda, electro punk-pop band Lollobrigida and psychedelic electro-rockers Petrol. There will be more acts announced via the website: www.warriorsdancefestival.com/rs

There can be no doubt that ’09 -‘11 belonged to The Prodigy. Their No 1 album ‘Invaders Must Die’ has sold over 1.5 million copies to date and was the most successful independent release of 2009 in Europe. Renowned for their incendiary live performances, the band jetted back and forth across the globe, covering in excess of 200,000 miles to play to 2 million people at 128 gigs in 37 countries. They are currently recording their sixth studio album.

Event details:

Warrior’s Dance Festival, Serbia – Saturday September 15, 2012

Kalemegdan Fortress, Belgrade, Serbia. 6pm – 6am

Tickets on sale January 16^th:

Early birds £30 + booking fee (limited amount available)

General £40 + booking fee

Available from;

Etickets: http://www.etickets.to/buy/?e=7810

Resident Advisor: http://www.residentadvisor.net/event.aspx?328140

Skiddle: http://www.skiddle.com/festivals/warriors-dance-festival/

See Tickets: http://www.gigsandtours.com/?c=611106&site=611106

 Travel Info:

You can fly direct to Belgrade with JAT www.jat.com and Wizz Air www.wizzair.com or indirect with most airlines. Belgrade has hundreds of hotels to suit your budget from 5* hotels to apartments, or you can just fly in and out with Wizz Air for 24hours with no sleep and dance like a true Warrior! Check out hotels here: http://www.serbia.travel For weekend packages stay tuned as we will be bringing you some exciting deals.

More  info:

http://www.warriorsdancefestival.com/rs

http://www.warriorsdancefestival.com

https://www.facebook.com/warriorsdancefestivalbelgrade

Belfast’s pop sensations The Wonder Villains announce the Release of brand new Single: “Ferrari” on Feb 17th

Underworld Release “A Collection” and “1992-2012 Anthology” : Irish Rel date Fri 20th January

Underworld begins a hectic 2012 by announcing the release of two career spanning compilation albums in January.

Firstly, ‘A Collection’ is a single disc set which features edited highlights of the band’s 20-year career. ‘A Collection’ features radio versions of many of the band’s best known tracks alongside recent collaborations with High Contrast & Tiesto (‘The First Note is Silent’), Mark Knight & D. Ramirez (‘Downpipe’) and Brian Eno (‘Beebop Hurry’).

The second compilation – the three-disc ‘1992-2012 Anthology’ – radically updates the band’s previous singles compilation by complimenting 16 full-length Underworld classics with nine rare/previously unreleased tracks. From pre-‘Dubnobasswithmyheadman’ outtakes through to newly mixed live recordings, 1992-2012 Anthology’s third disc is an essential purchase for any Underworld fan.

Both compilations are available now from (among other places) the band’s website – underworldlive.com – as digital downloads with physical CD versions will available from 20th January. CD copies pre-ordered from underworldlive.com will instantly receive an MP3 download of the album for no extra cost. Pre–ordered CDs will ship w/c 16th January to arrive on or very shortly after the official street date of 2oth January.

In December 2011 Underworld were announced as Music Directors for the Opening Ceremony of the London 1012 Olympic Games. The appointment sees Rick and Karl reunited with the ceremony’s Artistic Director Danny Boyle as they continue their 15-year relationship. The band have previously worked with Boyle on the films Trainspotting, A Life Less Ordinary, The Beach and Sunshine and, most recently, the hugely acclaimed British theatrical production of Frankenstein.

 www.underworldlive.com / www.cookingvinyl.com