Two Door Cinema Club win Choice Music Prize Album of the Year 2010



Two Door Cinema Club celebrate winning the Choice Music Prize Album of the Year 2010



Massive kudos to Two Door Cinema Club who were last night announced as the winner of the Choice Music Prize – Irish Album of the Year 2010 for the album Tourist History (Kitsune). 

There, I said it. Although quite shocked at the event in Vicar Street, I have had some time to reflect on the outcome, and would not bedrudge the lads their success one bit. And a great gesture by donating the 10,000 cash prize to charity. Impressive.

We saw Two Door play in Dolan's early last year, before Tourist History had ever been released or even included on an ad for a mobile phone company, and they were amazing. A crowd full of revved up teenagers brandishing glow-sticks danced their socks off through the electric set, and it seemed that the lads were definitely not destined for flash in the pan status.

Sure, the album is not as delicate as Villagers/McMorrow, as completely jaw dropping as Halves or as woozily rocky as O Emperor - but it is a complete package, a sugar-rush of effective tunes that have marked TDCC out from the start as ones to watch.

The usual naysaying has begun already after the event - and I feel for the likely runners-up Villagers and James Vincent McMorrow (by all accounts in the final three along with the Bangor electro-poppers), but then this award has NEVER been predictable, has always kept people guessing, and in recent years has already rewarded the ever-so-slightly left of centre of the Irish music scene (Adrian Crowley, Jape and Super Extra Bonus Party spring to mind). I think this award is likely to propell TDCC to bigger and better things, and their acoustic set last night was a joy to behold, showing the young trio to be real musicians.

That said, Conor J. O'Brien must be gutted. After missing out on the Mercury Music Prize (which insiders believed he had a great chance of winning), many felt (this writer included) that the Choice was a formality, a done deal. Not so. Conor is gracious enough and talented enough to take it on the chin, and is clearly destined for great things himself. If there was an award for best performance on the night, Villagers would have strolled out the door and down the street with it. Not to be, however.

Another great night at Vicar Street, with great performances all round, showing the current healthy state of the Irish music scene - if it was a little reliant on the Dublin music scene. Waterford's O Emperor very  nearly stole the show on the night, and the lads enjoyed themselves afterward, but were very gracious in defeat too.

Look forward to next year.





More new acts for Electric Picnic 2010

AFTER a storming set at Oxegen, the seemingly ubiquitous Bangor electro-poppers Two Door Cinema Club have been added to the bill for this year's Electric Picnic festival, as have Mercury Music Prize nominee Laura Marling; Swedish star Robyn; The Antlers (whoop!); melodic Swedish outfit The Tallest Man On Earth; US indie up and comers Cymbals Eat Guitars; London electro-trio Chew Lips; Brooklyn quintet Fang Island; Dublin four piece The Riptide Movement; Donal Dineen & Friends; and Cork native Brian Deady.

Superb! They join a line-up that already includes Roxy Music, Leftfield, Massive Attack, LCD Soundsystem, The Frames and Mumford and Sons.

This latest batch of acts follows a recent announcement regarding the comedy stage at the Stradbally-fest, which will include the likes of Mario Rosenstock, Reginald D Hunter, Ardal O’Hanlon, Phil Jupitus, Ed Byrne, Colin Murphy, Dead Cat Bounce, Glenn Wool, Joe Rooney, Karl Spain, Eleanor Tiernan, Dermot Whelan and many more!

There is now just six weeks to go until the Picnic, and we can't wait! Tickets still available here.

Album review - Two Door Cinema Club 'Tourist History'

Two Door Cinema Club
‘Tourist History’
(Kitsuné Music)

THERE IS an awful moment at the start of this album where one can’t help feeling a hollow ball developing in the pit of your proverbial stomach; is this yet another case of hype over substance? We were led to believe that this album would contain great things, the Northern Irish trio of Alex Trimble, Kevin Baird and Sam Halliday, performing as trio Two Door Cinema Club, were to be the new great thing to emanate from these shores.
Inclusion on the BBC Sounds of 2010 list; plugs from Kanye West; signed to trendy French label Kitsuné Music in Europe and Glassnote in the US - with label mates Phoenix; good advance press; flashy videos - it all seemed to stack up.
But the opening thirty seconds of Tourist History, opener Cigarettes in the Theatre, is so samey, so part of the current zeitgeist of popular bands - Friendly Fires with dashes of Delorentos and Director from these parts - that you can’t help feeling let down.
Thankfully, this is but a passing feeling.

Admittedly it takes a few tracks for this album to worm its way in, but when it does, boy will it grip you and dig in its claws. By the time you get to the fifth track - the Vampire Weekend influenced Something Good Can Work - the first single from the album, it will be hard not to be hooked by the irregular Afro-beat, electro-pop inspired indie music.
All of the above influences are prevalent, including elements of Bloc Party’s earlier output, no surprise to note that UK producer Elliot James worked on this album.
The sheer joy of Something Good.. with its Caribbean rhythms, yelps, shouts and genial bass and guitar lines, will be hard to prevent working its way into your brain, but the Atlas-lite, Foals-esque intensity, Passion Pit-sing-song of I Can Talk will reel you in.
In fact, together with the superbly sweet and bouncy Undercover Martyn - “she spoke words that would melt in your hands / she spoke words of wisdom ” - these are the three most addictive tracks on this eventually immensely satisfying album.

There is a remarkable tautness to the songs on this debut, a complete lack of filler on an album that clocks in at a mere 33 minutes, while Trimble’s vocals are confident, the trio clearly feeding off each other’s youthful energy, the last 30 seconds of What You Know illustrating this in spades, while if second last track Eat Up It’s Good For You is not all over radios this summer, we will eat our hat.

Yes, Tourist History is hackneyed in places, and often sounds uncomfortably like the Irish bands mentioned above at times - but there are moments when this album will leave you gasping at its hotch-potch of styles, mixed together to produce a startlingly fresh sounding album.
RATING 4/5