Beyond the Pale – Preview
June 10th – 12th, Glendalough House

With the festival starting tomorrow, we decided it was time to have a look through the lineup and make a few recommendations. You can find the full timetable of all events here.

First off, the music! While we fully expect most of our readers to know Bonobo and Four-tet, we’ll have a look at some of the smaller events we’d recommend. There’s a good chance you’ll know them also, but indulge us nonetheless…

WILLIAM BASINSKI -Selective Memory Stage – Sunday at 6pm

“William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in NYC and most recently, California. Employing obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time.”

BOY HARSHER – Selective Memory Stage – Saturday at 8pm

“Boy Harsher, the Northampton, US-based duo of vocalist/lyricist Jae Matthews and producer Augustus Muller, announce their new album ‘The Runner (Original Soundtrack)’, out January 21st, 2022 on Nude Club.”

Aoife Nessa Frances – Selective Memory Stage – Saturday at 7pm

“The debut album of new Irish auteur Aoife Nessa Frances (pronounced Ee-fa) is shot through with a sense of mystery – an ambiguity and disorientation that illuminates songs with smokey luminescence. “The album title is a result of a mishearing. Cian Nugent [Aoife’s musical collaborator and co-producer] was telling me about childhood trips he made to Llandudno in Wales, passing through a station called Llandudno Junction,” reveals Frances. “Land of No Junction later became a place in itself. A liminal space – a dark vast landscape to visit in dreams…”

SODA BLONDE – Main Stage – Saturday at 5.45

“The debut album from Soda Blonde may be called Small Talk, but if there’s one thing the Dubliners do not do, it’s mince words. Out July 9th via Velveteen Records, the entirely self-produced album sees the group reflecting on their twenty-something experiences with refreshingly honest transparency.”

There are a few plays worth a mention. I’ve no idea how they’ll work outside a traditional theatre setting, but it’s always nice to see the much loved Dublin Oldschool, which is actually on twice over the weekend, Friday and Sunday on the Strawberry Feilds Stage.  There is also a blash of Clare Dunne, with her play Sure Look It, F*ck It.

DUBLIN OLDSCHOOL – “The Tiger Dublin Fringe Smash Hit show and Winner of joint Best Performers award 2014. Two brothers. Jason a wannbe DJ and Daniel, an educated, homeless heroin addict. They haven’t seen or spoken to each other in 3 years. Jason stumbles from one misguided misadventure to another in Dublin. Until one night, he finds his estranged brother Daniel on the street.”

The play that spawned the film…

CLARE DUNNE’S SURE LOOK IT, F*CK IT – Clare Dunne, star of Kin and Herself, brings her hit theatre show Sure Look It, Fuck It to Beyond the Pale for an exclusive festival outing. Hilarious, warm and poignant, Sure Look It, Fuck It is a magical spoken word odyssey weaving athletic poetry, dreamy live music and epic comedy to tell a deeply moving tale about discovering what home really means. Created and performed with Ailbhe Dunne and directed by Tom Creed.