Volume XX – Otwo – Issue 8

otwo otwo

OTWO talks to voice actor

john dimaggio music Wolf Alice Cloud Control Ron Pope film Women in leading roles Claire Dix interview Dallas Buyers Club games Revival of space sims OlliOlli Legend of Zelda: Link Between Worlds

letter from the editors

What’s hot & What’s not What’s hot

What’s not hot

FeedBuzz

NekNominations

Humans love lists because listing things conjures a sense of control out of nowhere over nothing. Buzzfeed has taken advantage of our feeble, impressionable brains to such an extent that we can’t make it through the day without encountering numbered pop cultural trash. They’re almost worse than magazine-dwelling What’s Hot & What’s Not columns. Enter FeedBuzz, the internet’s best piss-take website that “has good content, good articles that are original, good writers, and good news.” Our favourite article from the social news organization so far: Ten of the Twerkinest Moments In the US-Pakistan agreement on drones.

Todd Terje’s Debut Album Announced

Hot dang, it’s album time! Last week Norwegian disco wizard Todd Terje confirmed the upcoming release of his first full-length record, inspirationally entitled It’s Album Time. Due for release on the April 8th, it’s set to feature Bryan Ferry and promises a dazzling display of ear-melting electropop. Teamed with the announcement of a Dublin show on May 25th in the Button Factory and the release of his new single ‘Strandbar’, we’ll forgive you for soiling yourself with excitement.

Palentines Day

Because cheap lingerie is overrated and we shouldn’t need a greeting card holiday like Valentines to pressure us into purchasing ill-fitting lacy jocks that were most probably fashioned out of apple cores and Chinese newspapers to ensnare the opposite sex with. Why not celebrate Palentines Day instead? Make or do something lovely for your favourite mates and mark the anniversary of Poor Underwear Choice Day by guzzling the least romantic €4 bottle of wine Tesco has to offer.

What’s up, Chumps and Chumpette’s?

We are officially in that awful stagnation period of the semester where nothing’s happening in your lectures, you’ve drank yourself silly, and the impending loneliness of Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. Just what is going to get you out of that first-world rut? 24 pages of bumper-tobumper arts and culture, that’s what!

In our centre feature, Niall “Gossip Girl” Gosker has a sit down with probably the most well-known voice in the pop culture world, John DiMaggio. If you think you don’t know him, you’re bound to have heard him as Bender in Futurama and Jake the dog in Adventure Time.

Travel and Beer sends you to Darwin, Australia with a smooth bottle of Camden Gentlemen’s Wit in your hands and @tila, Foil Arms and Hog, and Mystic Mittens are back to help you all stop being bad at life!

Our Games section sees Karl Quigley have a look at the modern day revival of the space sims sub-genre. If you can’t tell your proton torpedoes from your photon torpedoes, then maybe reviews of Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past and OlliOlli will float your FTL drives. wIn Film & TV this fortnight, Laura “The Ultimate Warrior” Bell explores the disturbing trends and facts surrounding films that feature a woman as the main character. Director Claire Dix sits down with Ian Mulholland to discuss her early career and her latest documentary Broken Song, which has been lauded by audiences at home and abroad. In reviews, Dallas Buyers Club, Free Fall and Peabody and Sherman are all put to the Otwo test.

Music sees interviews with Ron Pope, Cloud Control and Wolf Alice, while Rebekah “Too many R’s” Rennick’s Radar has some nice chats with up-and-comers The Boxing Plot. In reviews, we’ve got everything (and we mean four albums) from St. Vincent to Bombay Bicycle Club.

Bringing you your regular dose of how to look hot, Fashion has the best looks across campus profiled in Street Style and the regular #Winning and #Binning column has the hots for Cillian Murphy and Lorde at the Grammys, while the fashion shoot this issue focuses on highlighting the quality of clothes available from online fashion outlets.

Bite our shiny metal asses, Jack & Steven

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Have you not heard of Nek Nominations? You must not be friends with the Lads.

It’s not good enough that you’re a closet alcoholic like the rest of us, you also have to be Lad enough to neck gargle on demand, and film it, and then re-assert your affiliation with the Lads. Extra LedgeBag LadBantz points for consuming anything sourced from, or plugged through, any bodily orifice other than the mouth. Especially your own arse.

Your Hangover from St Brigid’s Day

It seems like we just can’t celebrate the start of Celtic Spring without getting hopelessly obliterated for St Brigid’s Day. But sure, wasn’t St Brigid herself a great woman for the Dutch Gold? Any Pagan who’s worth their salt will tell you that she was.

As the patron saint of boatmen, milkmaids, babies, printing presses, and fugitives among other things, it’s no wonder she was hitting the beer most weeknights. #neknominateStBrigid

Proposed closure of the Exchange in Temple Bar

Somehow, one of Dublin’s only non-alcoholic spaces for culture and art exchange has been accused of facilitating alcoholism and/or tomfoolery and/or the unbeckoned frolicking of youths. This seems like a largely uninformed decision from Dublin City Arts Officer Ray Yeates, whose suspense of their licence is unwarranted and dumb. The Exchange is a unique and necessary resource for everyone in the city (cool kids and squares alike). Help it stay alive at www.exchangedublin.ie.

mystic mittens Aries

Libra

There is no problem that cannot be solved by the liberal application of ice cream sandwiches. Except perhaps lactose intolerance, they may just make that worse.

You may have enjoyed The Wolf of Wall Street, but don’t try to model your lifestyle on it. It’ll only lead to liver failure and a swathe of paternity tests.

Taurus You paint the sky blue with your presence and when you turn your back it turns to rain. Everyone is living in your game of chess. Pity you don’t know how to play chess.

Gemini You can’t cite “sophistication and casual” as your fashion inspirations. If you look like you just crawled out of a bin, then call a grouch a grouch.

Cancer Nothing illustrates your tragic desperation better than attempting to sue EasiSingles for false advertising. You really need to get out more.

Leo hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss purr

Now is as good a time as any to make big changes in your love life. Finding someone who understands what the word ‘deodorant’ means would be a step up. Dump the chump.

Virgo Mittens has some useful financial advice for you.

Given the way that you dress, if you stand outside the student centre holding a coffee cup for long enough, someone will drop two euro into it.

Scorpio Your love life will end up in tatters, as following the advice of a certain cat, your partner will dump you.

The fact that they’ll call you a smelly chump will only add insult to injury.

Sagittarius Think about it, in the future when your poor children are asked by the doctor “Are there any history genetic illnesses in your family?” they’ll have to say that one of their parents had canine leg disorder.

Capricorn You will feel like a big shot when you send an email to someone in authority and feel like you really put them in their place. Read that sentence again, except this time imagine the word “feel” is in italics.

Aquarius Your birthday will be ruined by the surprise appearance of dozens of sharks. Just try your best not to look like a floundering bloated seal. Yes, Mittens knows that’ll be hard for you.

Pisces The only true way to win the heart of the one you desire is by challenging and defeating them in a duel. Just make sure that your weapon of choice leaves most of your limbs intact.

When you are not looking, they will strike.

index 2 Regulars

——————————————— As usual, What’s Hot/What’s Not will help keep you hip like the cool kids, while Mystic Mittens also gazes into her crystal ball and gives a trademark mix of disgust and cynicism to warn you of impending doom.

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4 5 6

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Regulars

——————————————— Aside from what you’re currently reading on this page, there’s also a soapbox on the social agonies of conversations with your mother’s friends.

columns

——————————————— Taking a break from their glamourous stateside sojourn, Foil, Arms and Hog bring you your fortnightly dose of hilarity and @tila has some sage advice for all of you hunzos out there.

Travel & Drink

——————————————— The fine line between exquisite tea and craft beer becomes blurred by Camden Gentleman’s Wit and Áine Rickard takes a trip to the far north of Oz, as travel looks at what to do and what to avoid in Darwin.

——————————————— Irish director Claire Dix chats to Ian Mulholland about her film Broken Song, while Laura Bell examines cinema’s approach to women in leading roles. The jury’s in on the latest releases, Free Fall, Dallas Buyers Club and Mr. Peabody and Sherman; while Ronan Schutte talks you through the top ten greatest escapes in film history.

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Centre

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music

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fashion

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Games

——————————————— The greatest elven hero (sorry Legolas) returns in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, which gets reviewed this issue.

Also reviewed is OlliOlli, a new skateboarding title for the PS Vita.

The feature piece sees Karl Quigley chart the final frontier, looking at the demise of the space shooter and its phoenix-like resurrection.

Film

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Soapbox— Your Mother’s Friends You can’t run or hide from them and, just like the Spanish Inquisition, they show up when you’re never expecting them, Aaron Murphy recounts the horrors of running into your mother’s friends

——————————————— John DiMaggio drops by to talk to Niall Gosker about his unusual career, from his time as an alcoholic robot to his roles as a killer clown and a shapeshifting dog.

——————————————— This issue, Otwo gets to rendezvous with Ron Pope, Cloud Control and Wolf Alice; and we give you the lowdown on the latest album releases from St. Vincent, Nina Nesbitt, Bombay Bicycle Club and Augustines.

——————————————— Street Style is back in UCD, while in the spread, Sarah O’Shea gives you the inside scoop on finding that perfect top online. Meanwhile, #Winning or #Binning lets you in on all the latest trends.

culture

——————————————— Naomi Elster, the editor of HeadSpace, explains to Ellie Gehlert how a creative writing and art magazine can help people’s mental health. Culture Woulfe engages in some time travelling without the aid of a phone box, as the 1960s come alive in The Little Museum of Dublin’s latest exhibition.

fatal Fourway

——————————————— From Karate Kids to a donkey playing American football, the Fourway duke it out over the best underdog sports film.

As I make one of my regular trips to the supermarket or the post office or pharmacy these days, I very often find myself cornered by some inexplicably friendly, elderly-female acquaintance of my mother’s who has known me since I was *disbelieving gesture* “This big.”

It’s not that I am perturbed by these ambushes, which are probably a rather thoughtful gesture, so much as absolutely loathe the conversations that arise from them. I find myself repeating that “college is good” and “my studies are fine,” and “the exams were stressful” up to three times per trip, all to some interchangeable, nodding, motherly figure who has ensnared me on the street.

Once these formalities are dealt with, we move into the bleak, wellrehearsed phrases such as, “You’ve had a spurt since I last saw you” and “you’re the image of (insert non-blood-related relative here)” and “God, it’s an awful spell” and “there’s a storm coming, I can feel it in me waters,” which is truly an absolutely grotesque statement of supernatural ability and which, if you’re not careful, forces you to imagine her psychic juices sloshing about like some meteorological weather vane.

Occasionally, with some of the more malevolent predatory smalltalkers, one is then whisked into the advice stage. This, nowadays, seems to be largely focused on my college budget; “Mind the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves” is a common one. My health comes up as well, “When I was in college, I’d cycle my bike everywhere and never once got sick.” And in third place, my studies, “Oh yes, it’s good to keep the head down at the start of the year, it makes it much easier.”

Again, all of this probably comes from some desire to be friendly on their part, but for the victim it can feel like you have to re-live the war with a crooning advisor at your side.

It’s not nice to be rude, so I will usually humour them, but I know that I’m not the only one who braves this horror every time I go out. I just don’t feel like we should be obliged to please the chatter-starved masses to get on with our lives.

It’s probably arrogant, and a little sad, to assume that these women need our lacklustre interactions to fill a hole in their life, but I can find no other explanation for their clinginess. Just as you think you’re out the other side you are brought to heel by an “Oh and tell me, how’s ___ doing now?”

This has to stop. This behaviour shouldn’t be normalised. The vultures are circling. We must rise against the new (old) breed, or forever be servants to their whimsy.

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Foil, Arms & Hog—Jaysus, I’d love a holiday With the long dark of winter leading into the long dark of spring, Foil Arms and Hog yearn for a holiday

There’s no greater stimulus for planning a holiday abroad than the misery of an early February morning. You’ve got a lecture at 9am, your housemate ate your Cheerios, you can’t feel your fingers, the chains come off your shit bike and the kids are acting up… (We’re trying harder to appeal to the mature students).

But, for god’s sake, go somewhere away from other Irish people. There’s nothing worse than leaning out of your hotel window on a remote island in the Pacific where only you and 80-year-old Japanese Second World War soldiers reside, only to hear “Hey Mossy, isn’t that Kevin from Ag Science?”

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

It’s hard to avoid Irishness abroad, what with every major city having a Biddy O’Mulligans bar, but dont worry, Irish people are really easy to spot.

Is it our misshapen heads? Yes, but well there’s tonnes of other stuff too. Runners, white socks, Hawaiian shorts, white beads, red faced and profusely sweating under a Longford GAA jersey; it’s the Irish Lad on Holidays.

Beside him is the more appropriately dressed Irish lass, albeit two stone heavier after a three month J1 in Chicago arguing, “The American food is, like, sooooo much fattier.”

If you decide to spurn this way of holidaying, the rewards can be great, especially with the opposite sex.

The quaint Irish accent is a courtship lightsaber. Books could be written about the Irish accent’s hypnotic effect on the opposite sex abroad. You say “How’s she cuttin?” and the foreigner says “Marry me!”

Such a social experiment was in fact conducted in Chicago recently whereby one Irishman was placed in a room full of American women. He could only say the words “thirty-three and a third,” but the results were inconclusive because he ended up hammered in Biddy O’Mulligans and forgot to fill out the form.

It’s hard to avoid Irishness abroad, what with every major city having a Biddy O’Mulligans bar, but dont worry, Irish people are really easy to spot

Despite this, we have managed to get our hands on a transcript of an actual Irish man chatting up an American girl with thanks to the national archive.

‘I’m Irish.’

“Uh Cool.”

‘Do ya recognise me?’

“Um no. Do you know the Irish band the Script?”

‘Yeah, kinda. Im yer man outa dat.’

“Who?” ‘Im yer man Danny from the Script.’

“Oh my god!”

‘I was also captain of the Longford minors.’

“What?”

‘Forget the last bit. Would you like ta shift me?’

“I have no idea what you just said but it sounded amazing. Hold on while I call my current boyfriend and dump him.”

Also, when on holidays, it’s not ‘do as the locals do’ with everything. Sunscreen up! If it’s hot, wear it.

We seem to think that we’ll have a tan by Thursday and on Monday we’ll be back in Rathoath rubbing it in everyone’s faces.

What will actually happen is that by Tuesday you’ll be naked, in agony, standing spread eagled in

@tila_da_hun 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!

Alrigh’ Hun,

Whats de actual fookin story with doin’ a J1 in de summer? My auld pair are in a hoop here tryin’ to get me to sign up for one, nd I would n all ‘cept one of the girls is friend’s wit Johnno’s mate Bifto’s mate Ziggy, nd he’s yer man who owns one of dem hat stands at festivals dat sells all hats nd shit at festivals. She’s sayin we could get a job off him sellin hats and paintin’ faces for schaldy hoors fer the summer, but like, should I actualy just give up on bein a J1 hack?

In bits.

Millinera xx

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Hiya Hun,

Here, I’ve been sick as a hoor fer ages, nd den I u stalled it to the doctor last week fer sum codeine to tide it out, but the absolute slutbag gives me a load of antibiotics instead. So I have te stop garglin fer fer weeks!? That doctor is some fat knacker if she thinks I can be sober for Duke Dumont this week. ‘nd dese are the specially bogey antibiotics that ruin ye even if yer only west coast cooler like a spa. Is der any way I can still sesh, or should I try to give a shit bout like, college or whatever?

Beibho xx C’mere to me, First tings first, ye can definitely still sesh. Bein on medicine can be a bogey lifestyle change fer sum, Howiye love. but wiv a bitta thought u can still maintain a healthy Well like, both Dublin and the States have public balance of goin on fat benders most nites. Don’t parks and sell cans, so like, yer set for a good even try to make dis an excuse to study, unless yer summer either way? I’d nearly go to de U.S. purely a raging softcock. Get back on the codeine. I’ve been for de fact dat ye get the most stunnin’ profile slakin’ codeine since opium was introduced te China pictures der ever! Only thing is, if yiz are abso sure ‘round 400AD, it revolutionised the sesh at the time. dat ye can get the job sellin’ hats yiz should stay Me and the girls were actually de first motts here and buzz offa that. gettin absolutely binned on purple drank, we were I worked in one dem once, dis mad time after just forced to sterilize some shcaldy lake water by me and the girlos were stopped by de poxy double heatin’ it and then we thought sure like chuck in walls of Constantinople. We’d already bolloxed de some tea, bergamot n’ opium fer the craic. Was Romans n’everything, nd were just floatin around actually whopper. doin’ nuthin’, so we set up a glam lil’ facepaintin Ask fer Codinex in yer local Pharmo, nd den mix 2 booth fer the craic. De armies we half-killed actually parts mountain dew for every one part cough syrup. thot it was mad cute ‘n’ fun too, It’s a sesh’s best friend.

‘Tila xoxo ‘Tila xoxo

ok hun?

front of your refrigerator in your apartment and the kids are acting up.

If you do manage to man up and stick on the pasty protector you’re going to forget your legs. I once burnt my legs so badly whilst sunbathing on a boat that I couldn’t walk. The sun burn was on the shins with the calves remaining a deliciously Donegal white.

I resembled a hobbling Neapolitan ice cream.

Bottom line is, if you’re Irish just forget about getting a tan. Just remember, when you’re abroad do not under any circumstances answer your phone, Meteor will ride ya.

darwin—The Dos & Don’ts After visiting the top end of Down Under, Áine Rickard recounts the highlights and oddities that make Darwin a unique destination

Beer of the

Fortnight

Camden Gentleman’s Wit

Do

visit Mindil beach sunset market. Stroll beside a strip of sandy beach or dine at the food stalls selling pad thai, Indian samosas and other savoury delights. Craft stalls selling Australasian knick-knacks will help with your souvenir shopping, while grabbing your own stretch of sand to sip a cold beer on and listen to the waves is a great Australian experience.

Don’t

assume you all speak the same English. Key to your new vocab should be ‘schooners’ and ‘tucker’: small pints and a feed. Someone admiring your ‘thong’ whilst pointing at your footwear is not hitting on you and know that a smack to the ‘knackers’ might diminish your chances of fathering a child in the future.

Do

visit nearby Kakadu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site the size of Leinster. It is a place of amazing wilderness, containing six different ecosystems, housing over a third of Australia’s bird species, 74 different mammal types, and supporting hundreds of exotic-looking trees and plants. Look forward to seeing wombats, dingoes, kangaroos, bats, the occasional snake, and of course, the most notorious of northern Australia’s wildlife, crocodiles.

Don’t

expect a bustling metropolis.

The city has a population of only 130,000, and downtown Darwin feels more like Athlone in the outback than cosmopolitan Sydney.

Small isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The laid-back vibe and community feel is a nice antidote to big city overload.

Do

pack sunscreen. Tropical Darwin is a consistent 30 degrees celsius all year round.

Even the wet season, their equivalent to winter, brings an average low of six sunshine hours per day, much more than our Celtic skin can handle without a heavy dose of Factor 30. If monsoon storms and incredible lightning shows aren’t your thing, your best visiting in the dry season, between April and September.

Don’t

miss seeing one of the oldest living cultures in existence, that of the local Australian aboriginals. Historic rock art can be viewed at places like Nourlangie Rock, while Bowali Visitor Centre illuminates aboriginal hunting techniques such as cooking, wood carvings and paintings. Negative stereotypes about aboriginal people are abound in Australia; go hear about their culture from the source and judge for yourself instead.

Do

hire out a campervan and drive into the wide open countryside surrounding Darwin for a while. Cooking outdoors, looking at the incredible night-sky, and roaming this dusty red land brings a definite sense of freedom from the world as you know it. Less than two hours south of Darwin is Litchfield National Park with its glorious waterfalls, while two more hours gets you to Katherine Gorge and a gorgeous boat ride up the canyon.

Don’t

dive head first, metaphorically speaking, into any of the tropical waterways or beaches around Darwin without checking with locals first. Box jellyfish are nasty killers present in the seas from October to March, whilst menacing freshwater and saltwater crocodiles swim in the creeks year round.

Heed any riverside warnings of crocs nearby; an unfortunate German tourist chose to ignore such a signpost in 2002 and didn’t live to tell the tale.

Do

make a trip to the Defence of Darwin museum. During the Second World War, the Japanese viewed Darwin as a stronghold for Allied forces in Australasia and bombed the city repeatedly in 1942 and 1943. Present day inhabitants like visitors to understand their war experience and the interactive displays at this centre certainly help put you into their shoes.

Don’t

forget to chat to the locals.

Living in gruelling heat and dust and removed from the whims of urban life in Melbourne or Perth, Top Enders come with an extra dose of grit and a distinct lack of political correctness, which is a refreshing jolt to the senses.

Are you someone that loves Earl Grey tea but have found yourself thinking, ‘If only there was a beer that tasted like this’? If so, then Camden Gentleman’s Wit is the beer for you.

The brainchild of Camden Town Brewery, the Gentleman’s Wit offers a very English twist to a Belgian-style wheat beer.

Gentleman’s Wit is a 4.3% witbier brewed with pilsner and wheat malts and perle hops. The addition of roasted lemons and bergamot are what set this wheat beer apart from its competitors, however.

The lemons give this beer a zesty and refreshing flavour while the bergamot gives the Gentleman’s Wit its signature Earl Grey fragrance and a floral finish to the flavour.

Available in 330ml bottles, the Gentleman’s Wit proves that you don’t have to go as far as Belgium or Germany for a good wheat beer and that there is an ideal solution for when you just can’t wait for the kettle to boil.

Steven Balbirnie

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The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

As an exercise in creating great adventure stories, A Link Between Worlds shows that sometimes the biggest adventures come in the smallest packages.

This incredible gaming experience pulls at the strings of nostalgia for series veterans, while also creating a fun-filled and accessible adventure for newcomers.

Story-wise, A Link between Worlds is quite predictable. You play as young apprentice blacksmith, Link, who has to save the Princess of Hyrule, Zelda.

It’s nothing that reinvents the wheel of the series, but new additions such as the ability to merge with the walls of the world, as well as the new area of Lorule to explore, creates some great new gameplay mechanics and puzzles.

While initially it may seem as though there is nothing different here, A Link Between Worlds borrows heavily from A Link to the Past, the game’s canonical predecessor and this allows for the game to play on the nostalgia of veterans. Its

use of similar straightforward mechanics prevents anything convoluted getting in the way of simply enjoying the game.

This strength that A Link Between Worlds plays on effectively adds to its simplistic, but enjoyable, sense of gameplay. But what A Link Between Worlds probably does best is highlight the pressing problems within the series. Previous series staples that have grown stale such as dungeon-specific items and the overreliance on the in-game currency, rupees, are addressed through the games’ item rental system.

All secondary items are only accessible through this rental system and can only be purchased permanently for an excessively high price, which also gives the player the incentive to still want to collect rupees, but the overall importance of hording is lessened.

Another problem addressed regarding the Zelda series, and indeed modern gaming in general, is the

idea of a strictly linear gaming experience. Excluding a very small handful of dungeons in the game, all can easily be explored in any order. This ultimately grants the player a greater sense of freedom within the game, which in turn allows for a much more engrossing and liberating experience.

The only gripe to be found is the fact that there isn’t much challenge for those familiar with this series and the adventure is quite short lived.

However, the addition of a “hero mode” difficulty setting somewhat rectifies these issues by adding both replay value and increasing the difficulty.

The latest edition to this monolithic franchise deserves nothing more than your undivided attention. For existing fans, it is a must have and for those who have wanted to try the series, it is a promisingly enjoyable entry in a franchise that needed this kind of reinvigoration.

James Kearney

Publisher Nintendo Developer Nintendo Platforms 3DS

OlliOlli

Developers Roll7 Publisher Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Platforms PS Vita Remember skateboarding games? The Tony Hawk Pro Skater franchise broke down the barrier to the mainstream in the late 90s, managing to successfully mix accessibility with a deep enough combo system so as to appeal to a very wide audience.

It wasn’t long before THPS was run into the ground with annual instalments. Ex-developers Neversoft now make Call of Duty maps for a living; a tragedy if ever there was one.

EA’s Skate series saw a brief and deserved threeyear rejuvenation period before fading away in the ether once more. OlliOlli comes at a time when there’s a sufficient gap to fill and demand for it too.

While it’s unlikely to be the cultural phenomenon Tony Hawk was, it’s a very welcome release indeed.

A rare PlayStation Vita exclusive, OlliOlli is perfectly suited to the portable device, given not only the simplicity of its controls, but also its emphasis on bite sized portions of gameplay.

The left analogue stick acts as a substitute for

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the skater’s legs and when flicked in a particular direction an analogous trick is performed.

Landing tricks properly is as important as performing them with very specific timed presses of the X button required in order to pull off the much sought after perfect landing. With the shoulder buttons, rotations can be made, adding another small variable to the game.

It’s a simple setup, but not overly so, striking the previously mentioned balance between depth and accessibility although with high degree of skill is still required. OlliOlli is unforgiving, with regular failure guaranteed. The brief nature of each individual level in combination with instant restarts quells the frustration and makes successive repeat attempts very appealing.

The core mechanics are rock solid and result in a feeling of immense satisfaction when even the simplest of tricks are performed. Around the edges though, OlliOlli is a little bare.

Outside of the going through the main stages and their remixed variants, Daily Grind is the only other mode. This gives all players the same level to compete on over a 24-hour span, but only one chance in which to do so. It’s a clever, tense addition.

However, it isn’t enough to round out the overall package.

Given OlliOlli ’s emphasis on high score chasing, leaderboard integration is disappointingly limited.

You can see the global leader for each stage and your own individual position, but friend comparisons are nowhere to be found. It’s a baffling omission.

At the moment, OlliOlli sets a great foundation.

Hopefully developers Roll7 will give it the support it deserves in the future, fleshing it out with more content. If they do so correctly, OlliOlli could be the next great skateboarding game.

Niall Gosker

Watch this space With their recent rise to popularity once more, Karl Quigley charts the space simulator’s downfall and rebirth

No Man’s Sky

Further projects like Kerbal Space Program, which launched its first official alpha in 2011, proved to be a success, reaching the top five games on Steam for both sales and playtime

Kerbal Space Program

No Man’s Sky

Space: the final frontier. Until about the late 90s, that is. In the days before modern gaming, space simulators were a large part of the electronic world.

Games based on film franchises such as Star Wars: X-Wing were hugely popular, offering players the choice to pilot iconic ships throughout tours of duty in the film universe.

This was just the tip of the iceberg, with Lylat Wars, Wing Commander, and half a dozen Star Trek games. Space simulators, however, were not limited to simple combat. Titles like Elite, Freelancer and Wing Commander: Privateer offered so much more. These games fell under the category of space trading as well as combat, allowing players to advance in rank and standing by means of trading, exploration and combat if they wished.

From the 1980s to the late 90s, space simulators were the cornerstone on which many gamers relied.

Their open-ended worlds, complicated controls, and ambitious systems intrigued many. Plenty of these titles offered an attention to detail that almost no other genre could boast of. Unfortunately though, the very aspects that made the genre special also played a key role in its regrettable fall from popularity.

At the end of the 90s, coinciding with the rise of first person shooters, real time strategies and roleplaying games; space simulators fell out of what was considered at the time to be main stream of popular gaming. Notable titles such as Doom, Warcraft and Diablo, the final frontier suddenly didn’t seem so attractive anymore as the gritty realism of fantasy and real worlds took over instead.

The genre didn’t disappear entirely though, limping onwards with EVE Online and the X Series. EVE Online was not the first predominantly multiplayer game based around space combat and trading, but it was the first to achieve lasting success. Released originally in 2003, it remains active today with an impressive amount of players.

As does the X Series, which attained popularity due to its open world and the option to disable plot entirely and opt instead for the game’s sandbox mode. The freedom offered by these games allowed the genre to survive in the background, hiding in deep space from the triple-A titles that currently dominate the gaming market.

In 2007, with the release of Mass Effect, some critical attention was drawn back into the space genre. While not a space simulator, Mass Effect offered the possibility of a revival for space simulators. In recent years, starting from around 2011, crowdfunding has become a realistic option

and as a result several space-based projects have sprung up.

Titles that are now quite well-known such as Strike Suit Zero, Star Citizen, No Man’s Sky and Elite: Dangerous, which is a direct revival of its namesake, all appeared from a hyperspace jump into the spotlight.

Further projects like Kerbal Space Program, which launched its first official alpha in 2011, proved to be a success, reaching the top five games on Steam for both sales and playtime.

Offering not only a full-fledged quasi-realistic space launch experience, the player must also design and build his or her own craft. The complex controls and open-ended world, aspects which defined the original space simulators, had begun to return.

Elite: Dangerous sought to fund itself with £1,250,000 and currently sits with £2,268,556. Elite encourages players to “take a ship and a hundred credits” and go make a living for themselves, legally or not. Strike Suit Zero, launched in early 2013 after successful funding, is a level-based never ending space combat simulator with players striving simply to survive longer and achieve a higher score than others.

Star Citizen began with a goal of $500,000.

It’s expected to release in early 2015 with funding currently at a mind blowing $37,357,728. Star Citizen very much emulates its predecessors in every way, with a minimal plot to begin with in the form of an extended learning section, followed by the typical fashion of being thrown immediately into the deep end after.

As shown by its current and exponentially growing fan base, it offers what most believe to be the best chance at a fully-fledged revival of the beloved space simulator.

While information is currently limited, No Man’s Sky has the makings of something that could be special, offering a completely uncharted universe to explore, one which is entirely procedurally generated. Mainly branding itself as a multiplayer game, the possible potential for this idea is huge, but it remains to be seen if it will stay true to the original principle of space simulators and indeed, its own vision.

With the current state of the gaming world, where indie developers are free to create their ideas and where crowd funding is a more than viable option to attain funding, it is a healthy atmosphere for these simulators to make their return and show the universe what they have to offer.

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Lights, camera, representation!

Looking at how the film industry perceives and treats women, Laura Bell argues that the industry is, for the most part, consciously ignoring women

Last year, the second instalment in the Hunger Games franchise, Catching Fire, became the first film with a female lead to top the annual box office in 40 years. Its predecessor was, laughably, the Exorcist, whose narrative centres on a female child who has been possessed by the decidedly gendered demon we know as Satan.

While Kathryn Bigelow’s triumph at the Academy Awards in 2010 may have seemed a turning point for women in the film industry, she remains the only woman to have ever won the Oscar for Best Director, and still one of only four women ever nominated in the category.

The reality is that women were featured in directorial roles in only 4.4% of the 100 highest earning films of the decade between 2002 and 2012. The math is simple and stunning. It makes four,

by Hollywood standards, truly successful female directors over ten years.

Despite Katniss Everdeen’s conquest at the box office, 2013 was a decidedly mediocre year for women in Hollywood. Of the 250 biggest movies of the year, women made up only 16% of the studio employees involved in overall production.

This number marks a 2% drop from 2012, and perhaps more shockingly, means women are 1% less involved in the industry than they were 16 years ago in 1998. The recession hasn’t helped matters, with studios reluctant to take risks on both original movies and directors who haven’t proven themselves through massive box office returns.

The revenue provided by the VHS, and later the DVD, markets allowed production companies, for a time, a level of freedom to take risks and cater to the groups they perceived as being minority.

However, Hollywood now is manufacturing a significantly lower number of films and thanks to piracy, profiting less from the home movie market.

Studios are sticking to tried and tested tent pole movies; that is, films that already have an established fan base and mythology, and which will draw audiences to theatres by virtue of their existence.

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Despite this, the statistics suggest that if we The reboot of the Spiderman franchise with add female characters to films continuing on Andrew Garfield, less than ten years after the the trajectory we have been on for the past two conclusion of the Tobey Maguire trilogy is an decades, we may not achieve parity for 700 years. excellent example of this way of thinking at play in All of this inequality seems, at its most basic the real world.

In addition, international audiences now provide level, to rely on the notion that women will go to see movies about men, but men won’t go to see roughly 80% of the returns studios see on their movies about women. blockbusters, and big budget, testosterone-driven In the last couple of years, directors like Paul action flicks with little dialogue are what sells in the Feig have brought us female-centric movies that non-English speaking world. Cultural nuances and men have loved, such as 2011’s Bridesmaids ; entirely character development require too much context and exposition to be fiscally worthwhile. disproving, on all levels, that male viewers as a Recent research has also shown that within the whole are inherently sexist. context of these typically male-driven films, even Lynda Obst, who worked as a producer on their depiction of the real world outside of the both Sleepless in Seattle and How to Lose a Guy plot is biased. The typical crowd scene is only 17% in 10 Days has discussed this erroneous notion female; but more alarming is that studies show the at length saying, “I was told recently, when you average male, shown such images, regards the ratio market a movie, listen to this, it’s kind of amazing, of women to men present as equal. do not risk losing a single male viewer by catering That is to say, the ratio of 17% women to 83% to women in your advertising and marketing men is perceived as being 50/50. As actress and because women will go anyway.” activist Geena Davis asserts, “Maybe directors think It’s difficult to know where to start when women don’t gather, I don’t know.” attempting to redress the gender balance in Extending ever further into the realm of the Hollywood. Do we begin with the so-called incomprehensible, when shown a crowd that is ‘celluloid ceiling’ that keeps women out of comprised of 33% women, men perceive that there production, or allow established male directors are more women in the room than men. This is not a like Feig prove to audiences that men can take an commentary on men in themselves, but on the social interest in stories about women? conditioning that shrinks the feminine, amplifies the The culture of objectification and masculine, and ultimately normalises the subjugation sexualisation that pervades the media’s notion of all but the white heterosexual male. of the feminine ultimately ends up complicating Indeed, a FEM study reports that “television this issue further, as the lack of respect for exposure was positively correlated with self-esteem female substance acts cyclically through who for young white boys, but negatively correlated for produces, what is depicted, and how audiences self-esteem for young girls and African-American react. There is still hope, however. children.”

As Davis asserts, “In all the sectors of society Ironically enough, Terry Press, co-President of that still have a huge gender disparity, how CBS Films, points out that “men don’t go to the long will it take to correct that? You can’t snap movies as much [as women]. Younger males are your fingers and suddenly half of congress is now the least reliable to turn out. Women go to the women. But there’s one category where the movies. When there’s something women want to underrepresentation of women can be fixed see, they turn out, both younger and older.” tomorrow: onscreen.”

Despite Katniss Everdeen’s conquest at the box office, 2013 was a decidedly mediocre year for women in Hollywood. Of the 250 biggest movies of the year, women made up only 16% of the studio employees involved in overall production

Exploring the zen of rap Following the release of her acclaimed documentary Broken Song, director Claire Dix speaks to Ian Mulholland about her early shorts, the Dublin rap scene and Zen poets

Broken Song was the first feature-length film from director Claire Dix. A documentary following rap and soul artists from Dublin’s north side, the film won the Discovery and Audience Awards at the 2013 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

It was during her time studying Communications at DCU that Dix discovered her interest in filmmaking. “I remember thinking I’d love to combine creative writing and photography and then I saw Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas and I really loved that film. That really clicked with me, and I kind of thought, ‘Wow, I’d love to do something that creates so much atmosphere and mood’ and started looking towards film.”

After completing her MA in Sheffield Hallam University, Dix directed several award-winning music videos for independent bands. Her most notable being Days of Sleep for the band All My Friends Are Dead. Dix had 48-hours to complete the project and enjoyed the free nature of creating a visual medium for completely unsigned bands.

Dix elaborated, “I was just really lucky with the band because they kind of didn’t have a big ego at all they were like, ‘Look, do whatever you want’ kind of thing, and they said, ‘Look we just want you to respond to the music’ and the music I could really work with.”

Having worked in several music videos, Dix created Downpour, a short film again firmly focused on the visual. “Downpour, it’s a very visual piece and about mood and you know, kind of this bride remembering her relationships, all these pivotal moments happening, that happened in her relationship happened in the rain and it’s kind of about seeing rain in a new light.

“So it’s a very simple short, kind of sweet piece, but you know because there was so many setups and music it was a nice challenge, trying to tell the story almost purely visually”.

Following Downpour, Dix created Alia, a short using non-actors to depict the story of a young Afghani immigrant into Ireland. “It was another Film Board-funded short and it was about an Afghani girl, kind of like an East is East-type. Like it was very different to that, the basic was this Afghani girl who has an Irish boyfriend and just how that affects the kind of traditional family.”

Regarding the creation of documentary film rather than pure fiction, Dix sees similarities, along with benefit’s to the former. “I think the storytelling thing is the same. You’re telling a story, whether it’s real or imagined… It’s a visual medium so you’re still telling a story visually, but it’s a completely different discipline in so many other ways. It’s much more relaxed.”

Dix continues, explaining the benefits in regards day to day workings of documentary, rather than fiction. “We were filming from March to November for Broken Song, so you’ve a lot of time. If “I didn’t set out to change anyone’s mind about something doesn’t work out it’s not the end of the anything, but yeah, it would be nice if people world. With fiction, if a scene doesn’t work you’re did say ‘oh right, you can be an artist and not kind of in trouble.” be in a studio with a paintbrush, and you can Admittedly not an expert when it comes to rap be an artist and look a different way.’ It doesn’t music, Dix became interested in her subjects as have to be an art form that’s traditional, it can artists rather than simply as rappers. “I just got be anything, but there’s nothing revolutionary really interested in what they were doing; I was there.” interested in the lyricism.

As for her next project, Dix isn’t giving much “They’re kind of outsider artists, kind of Zen away. “I have a couple of projects I’m trying to kind poets, and I wanted to look at them as poets. I still of get off the ground. I’m trying to write a script at don’t know enough about the Irish rap scene and I the moment for a fiction piece I’d like to do. I really wouldn’t call it a film about the Irish rap scene; it’s liked working with a longer piece, so I would like to about these poets.” do something feature length again.”

One of the most common questions Dix has been Regardless of her future work, Dix can revel asked at screenings of Broken Song is whether she in her current successes, along with being at thinks it might change people’s views of young guys the forefront of the next generation of Irish directors. in hoodies from the northside.

I didn’t set out to change anyone’s mind about anything, but yeah, it would be nice if people did say ‘oh right, you can be an artist and not be in a studio with a paintbrush, and you can be an artist and look a different way’

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film reviews

dallas buyers club

Set in the 1980s, Dallas Buyers Club tells the story of Ron Woodroof (Matthew McConaughey), an electrician who is diagnosed as HIV-positive and given 30 days to live. The homophobic Woodroof initially struggles to come to terms with his “faggot” illness, but eventually accepts his situation and seeks treatment.

Although the film sporadically updates the audience on how much time has passed since Woodroof’s diagnosis, it does so in a very confusing manner. It begins using a “Day X” method, but then switches to “X months later”, before informing the viewer of a specific date, only to go back to the “X months later” timekeeping and eventually finishing on the original “Day X” method.

At first, Woodroof approaches Dr Eve Saks (Jennifer Garner) about getting access to AZT, an antiviral that had been approved for testing on humans. But even after illegally obtaining some AZT, Woodroof sees no improvement in his condition and so he goes to Mexico in search of non-FDA-approved treatment.

The rest of the film centres around a scheme whereby Woodroof transports drugs which had not been approved by the FDA into the US and sells them to others with AIDS, with the help of a transgender woman named Rayon (Jared Leto).

The film has received a lot of attention because of Leto’s supposedly brave decision to play a transwoman. Of course, there is the question of exactly why the studio decided to cast a cisgendered man instead of a transwoman.

There are many problems how movie treats Rayon, with the other characters constantly referring to her as “he”. In fact, transphobia and homophobia are two themes throughout the film.

Woodroof is quickly established as being racist and homophobic. Although we are supposed to see this in a negative light, his discomfort around gay people and Rayon are often used as a punchline.

There is also the issue with the decision to tell a story about the AIDS scare of the 1980s through the perspective of a straight man, despite the movie acknowledging that over 70% of AIDS sufferers at the time were gay or bisexual men.

McConaughey’s performance is surprisingly strong, and it carries the film through some weaker moments. The writing, however, leaves a lot to be desired, as Woodroof never acknowledges or apologies for his homophobic behaviour. Instead, we are expected to forgive Woodroof’s past actions after a few acts of kindness.

Dallas Buyers Club looks set to do quite well at the Oscars. McConaghey and Leto both won in their respective categories at the Golden Globes, although there is something a little off about Leto being nominated in the best actor category after playing a transwoman.

Director Jean-Marc Vallée Starring Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner Release Date February 7th

In a nutshell The subject matter of the film means that it will have many of its faults overlooked, with McConaughey carrying the film.

Kevin Beirne

free fall

Director Stephen Lacant Starring Hanno Koffler, Max Riemelt, Katharina Schüttler Release Date January 31st

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As the LGBT lifestyle and culture has become more socially acceptable in today’s world, films concerning the dilemmas and lives of gay, lesbian and trans* people are becoming more prevalent. In recent years, we’ve seen the likes of The Kids Are All Right and Milk, while the Palme d’Or winning Blue Is The Warmest Colour was one of the most talked about films of last year.

Now, German writer/director Stephen Lacant adds to this sub-genre with his debut full-length feature, Free Fall. His film may not reach the heights of the aforementioned, but it’s still an involving and sincere drama about coming to terms with the true nature of one’s sexuality and the internal crisis that can ensue.

Free Fall follows Marc Borgmann, played by an eminently watchable Hanno Koffler. Borgmann is a man whose future seems to be already laid out for him, a future he thinks he wants. He has a loving, heavily pregnant wife, good friends, a new home with his parents as neighbours and, like his father before him, a promising career with the police.

Borgmann’s world is, however, turned upsidedown when he begins to have strong feelings for his male academy roommate Kay Engel (Max Riemelt).

When these feelings are reciprocated by Engel, an affair begins to blossom between the two men and as Borgmann tries to hide it, his seemingly stable life starts to unravel before his own eyes and he is forced to make a choice.

The film has been hailed as the German

Brokeback Mountain and it’s hard not to see the obvious comparison to Ang Lee’s superior Oscarwinning drama. Both Koffler and Riemelt give very committed performances that make for a believable couple in the more intimate scenes. Katharina Schüttler is also particularly effective as Borgmann’s wronged and suspecting wife.

It is, however, on Koffler’s shoulders that the film primarily rests and he thrives as Borgmann experiences a torrent of emotions while dealing with the testosterone fuelled world of the academy, his very traditional parents, and trying to come to a decision that will hurt the least amount of people.

Interstingly, the narrative never confirms that Borgmann is exclusively attracted to men, challenging the notion that there is only straight or gay and nothing in between.

Some closure for the protagonist only comes in very closing moments, as for the first time in the film Borgmann is able to breathe easy while jogging.

For the first time in his life, he is free to explore his sexuality and find himself away from the pressures of his wife, parents and even Engel.

In a nutshell Although not the freshest of material, Free Fall is nonetheless thought-provoking, ultimately touching and elevated by its performances.

Mark Conroy

Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Top 10 escapes

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Director Rob Minkoff Starring Ty Burrel, Max Charles, Leslie Mann Release Date February 7th

It doesn’t seem immediately obvious why half a century after their TV show ended, Mr Peabody (a genius anthropomorphic dog) and Sherman (his adopted human son) have been given their own film.

Sherman, having spent the first few years of his life traveling to some of the most important periods in history with Mr Peabody in his WABAC machine, gets into a fight with a bully named Penny on his first day of school. In an attempt to defuse the ensuing discord, Mr Peabody invites Penny and her parents for a dinner party in the apartment he shares with Sherman.

When Penny gets into a spot of trouble in ancient Egypt she, Mr Peabody, and Sherman take the WABAC machine on an adventure through history on their way back to the present.

It’s this aspect of the film that works best.

There’s something quite enthralling about seeing the various periods our heroes visit, and the humour in these segments is much more well observed, on the whole, than in the frame story. This is one of the big problems with the film though.

As enjoyable as these segments are, they just serve to lead us back to the main story, which holds much less interest. Part of this is due to the fact that, while the historical sequences are driven by Sherman and Penny, the present-day story is much more focused on Mr Peabody himself.

For a character that should be so interesting, Mr Peabody is, for much of the movie, a bore.

Ty Burrell’s voicing is monotonous and oddly emotionless. As a result it feels as though Mr Peabody doesn’t have any passion for what he does.

It’s as if this is what a genius dog would do, so this is what he does. The supporting cast is decent, though, with Stanley Tucci, Leslie Mann and Stephen Colbert all putting in good turns.

Visually, the most impressive parts of the film are, again, those set in the distant past. The vibrant colours of the Renaissance are easily more alluring than the bland ones used for modern New York. It all contributes to the desire to get away from these scenes and back to the past. It did not have to be this way.

There are countless films that make modern cities visually appealing. Really, what the film is missing is a consistent sense of fun. We get glimpses of adventure and a few good jokes, but it’s just too inconsistent to stop parts of the film from feeling like a chore. At 92 minutes that’s a real problem. A film this short should not feel so long.

In a nutshell A patchy, if entertaining, adventure that ultimately proves mediocre.

Ian Mulholland

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The Dark Knight Rises

While Batman isn’t known for escapology, there were a few worthy escapes in this movie. Most of Gotham’s security forces escape from underground, meanwhile Batman escapes first from prison with that haunting theme song playing in the background, and finally from a fiery hell-death of nuclear proportions.

skyfall

James Bond? Check. Ruthless, evil-genius baddy? Check. A thoroughly confounding escape plot that, no matter how many times you run through it, doesn’t make sense? Check.

ocean’s 11

In the original 1960’s movie, the Rat Pack front a gang of thieves who plan to rob five different casinos. They blow up a transmission tower while everyone sings Auld Lang Syne, then get their money all while being the epitome of cool, calm and collected. They don’t even leave the scene of their crime until the lights come back on.

V for Vendetta

In a dystopian future a genetically engineered super human escapes from a high-level security prison. After years of hiding, he embarks on one of the greatest revenge plots in cinema history. No clue is given in the title.

The First Great Train Robbery

James Bond and President Snow from The Hunger Games team up to steal a large shipment of gold in 1854 during the Crimean War. Bond being a master thief and a member of high society plans it all out, breaking one of their acquaintances out of prison to help them.

The Silence of the Lambs

This is the most violent escape scene on our list. Basically, Lecter goes full-on homicidal on his guards, with some classical music playing in the background. Lovely.

inside man

So Clive Owen wants to rob a bank. Okay, let’s get him in so we can steal loads of stuff and a document that’s worth a fortune.

How is he going to get out? Simple, we leave him in there.

chicken run

Arguably the film of a generation, this had it all. There were so many hilarious ideas it was impossible not to laugh. The basic escape plan was to get the chickens to fly over the fence, which seems like it couldn’t be simpler. Now I don’t know if this is true, and I know that Ag Science people aren’t the best to ask about these things, but chickens can’t fly.

The great escape

It’s the Second World War and a repeat offender gets a whole dorm of prisoners to try to escape. Let’s be honest, you’ve probably never seen it, but can still whistle the theme tune to an impeccable standard.

The Shawshank Redemption

One of the best films ever made, featuring Andy Dufrense, the man who crawled through a river of poop and came out clean on the other side. An inspiring film that proves that in some escapes, a place to live and be happy is at the end of the tunnel.

Ronan Schutte

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“We’re all deranged lunatics and every class clown that ever existed is in that booth” Renowned voice actor John DiMaggio talks to Niall Gosker about the challenges and pleasures of the job, living in the Land of Ooo, and braving rabid Mark Hamill fanboys

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There’s a very good chance that if you wouldn’t Perhaps as equally important, it served as a way recognise John DiMaggio by appearance, you’d to “to do commercials without doing commercials,” almost definitely be able to place his iconic voice.

DiMaggio understandably wishing to avoid being It’s a voice that has permeated some of the most recognised in the street as the cheeseburger dude. popular and beloved pieces of entertainment over “I did a lot voices in my act,” he goes on to explain. the past decade, from animation to video games.

“So I just decided that I’d love to try doing some What’s even more impressive is how his range has voiceover and within that week I had a voiceover allowed his work to mean so many different things agent and booked my first audition, so that was to so many different people. in 1995.”

To some he’s the alcohol-guzzling robot Bender, After the successful audition, which was for a to others a grizzled war veteran and earth’s last Toyota ad, DiMaggio decided to move to L.A. “That hope against a horde of reptilian humanoids. was when I started to get into a lot more animation DiMaggio’s reach is a cross generational one too, stuff and, you know, the rest is kind of history after with his most recent well-known role as Jake the doing Futurama. It’s been a good run. I made a Dog in the equally enjoyable for kids and adults conscious effort to get into voiceover, but you know cartoon Adventure Time.

I kind of fell into animation.”

Having been so closely associated with Bender Most voice actors usually don’t have the luxury for many years, DiMaggio very much views this of providing the sounds for even one defining pop culture icon but DiMaggio’s already got at least three now intrinsic connection as a positive; although he’s happy to poke fun at the perils of such stardom. “It’s under his belt. hard paying for drinks, I’ll tell you that much. I know “I was doing stand-up comedy in New York and if I were to come to Dublin, it’d be pint city, you I was in a comedy team and I wanted to get out of it,” says DiMaggio of his initial desire to step into the know like, ‘you’re Bender, oh god!’”

“It’s actually pretty cool. You know the thing world of voice acting. “I had just got a new manager about it is, that when people find out you’re Bender at the time and I asked her, I said you know, ‘I’d really like to do voiceover.’ I had heard from a friend they know you’re funny, which is good to be associated with that.” of mine that it’s a good way to make money.”

Futurama’s devoted fan base led to its resurrection from cancellation in 2008, five years after it went off the air. For DiMaggio, slipping back into the It’s hard paying role after such an extended break wasn’t a problem.

“Like riding a bike it was, it really was,” he says. for drinks, I’ll “It’s just a character I’m really close with and it’s very tell you that special to be able to do the voice of a character for a cartoon because it’s always right there, very close to much. I know if you, you’re really immediate with it.”

The delightfully whimsical fantasy cartoon I were to come Adventure Time is what currently occupies much to Dublin, it’d of DiMaggio’s working hours. The show’s massively varied audience is really driven home when he be pint city, meets its fans in person. you know like, “It’s amazing the amount of people that are on the Adventure Time party train, it’s really something.

‘You’re Bender, What’s wild is when I go to conventions and I see the fans of the show, you know, it’s everybody. A oh god!’ whole family will walk up.

“The kid’ll be dressed as Finn, the dad’ll be dressed as Jake, the daughter’s dressed as Marceline, and the mum’s dressed as Princess Bubblegum. Or even a mum dressed as the Ice King who’s gone overboard, you know, ‘We’re seeing John DiMaggio today, we gotta represent!’ It’s just wild. The thing I like about it most is that it appeals to such a broad audience.”

While he may be most well-known for his comedic performances, DiMaggio enjoys more serious, dramatic work just as much. His stint as the Joker in 2010’s Batman: Under the Rod Hood is a particular highlight in this regard. Despite the role’s storied history, both on and off camera, the task of living up to his predecessors left him unfazed.

“I didn’t feel any pressure, but the only thing I did feel was the wrath of Mark Hamill fans,” DiMaggio jokes. “Those people, man, listen I know Mark. He loved my Joker. Mark came up to me and was like ‘John, I really love your Joker, I’ve been meaning to tell you this.’

“I got a picture on Twitter with him trying to get Mark Hamill fans to calm the fuck down, you know, it’s like take it easy. They’re unbelievable; they are rabid, rabid fans. And I get it; he was the Joker for like 20 years, I totally get it. But I didn’t feel any extra added pressure. All I needed to do was show up and blow up.”

With Microsoft recently acquiring the rights to the Gears of War series from Epic Games, it seems all but certain that a new entry is in development.

DiMaggio hasn’t gotten the call just yet, but he’d be more than happy to lend his voice once more.

“Listen, if I get to play Marcus Fenix again that’s just gravy right now, that’s just the cherry on top. I really enjoyed doing that. Doing voice for video games is the new big thing.”

It’s an increasingly complex task too, with motion capture performance becoming more commonplace as games try to tackle more sophisticated stories. “I just recently did a mocap, my first mocap. I’m not gonna tell you what it is but it’s pretty cool, it’s a pretty big deal.”

Such physicality is something DiMaggio is actually used to, the process of recording voiceover a surprisingly physical one. “I think voice acting is acting just with your hands and feet tied behind your back,” he remarks.

“It’s a very physical job. It’s not just going into a room and talking, you know people think that’s what you’re doing, no, it’s not. We’re performing this, we’re in it. Not only are we performing it, there are certain limits to what we can do physically in a voiceover session because you don’t want to move too much because the microphone will hear that.

It’s amazing the amount of people that are on the Adventure Time party train, it’s really something.

What’s wild is when I go to conventions and I see the fans of the show, you know, it’s everybody.

A whole family will walk up

“There’s things that you do with your face and there might be something you do with your arms and the way you have to stand to get it out. To me that’s part of your process, you know whatever gets you there gets you there.

“You have to also be conscious of where your face is in front of the microphone so that you’re not moving off mic or anything like that. There’s bad habits in the studio that people that aren’t voice actors do all the time, it’s much different than conventional performance.”

Despite the unsung difficulty of voice acting, it’s clear that DiMaggio very much loves what he does and still has a lot of fun getting the job done. “When your favourite cartoon voice actors are between when they’re recording and when they’re not recording, that’s the show. That’s the show that you wanna hear ‘cause it’s filthy. We’re all deranged lunatics and every class clown that ever existed is in that booth.”

A famous coming together of some of the most talented voices in the industry occurred at the Emerald City Comic-Con convention in 2012, where DiMaggio, along with fellow Futurama co-star Billy West, Batman staple Kevin Conroy, and many others, gathered to perform a radio play rendition of Star Wars.

“It kind of snuck up on us, we didn’t know it was going to take an hour and a half. If you noticed Billy West in the video, he’s so confused and he doesn’t understand why it’s funny when we’re doing it and he wants to get off stage. After the first 15 minutes he wants to leave. It’s really funny if you watch it again. “ Despite having being outrageously successful in his field, DiMaggio is remarkably humble about it all.

“I’m blessed, I’m honoured, I’m lucky. I mean, I don’t know. People have trusted me with these characters and I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve had a lot of people that thought I could do the job and cast me in it. I’ve been very fortunate and I bow to you all.

“If I have to do a video game, great. If I have to do a commercial, great. If I have to do a cartoon, great.

If I have to do on-camera, great. I don’t care, as long as I’m working and being creative, I’m happy.”

It’s a dedicated work ethic that has so far yielded numerous memorable performances and one which will surely continue to reap the awards for DiMaggio in the future.

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No wolf at the door Very much the children of the internet era, Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice takes the time to chat with Declan Moran about early beginnings, tin whistles and the creation of a new musical genre

Rowsell feels the addition of this rhythm If you’re one of those who’ve been living through element in a way created a new entity, a new band the long reign of cutesy ukulele-strumming girls, to the one that wrote songs such as ‘Wednesday’.

Wolf Alice know how you feel.

“That was a different band in a way; we just never The video for their debut single, ‘Fluffy’, opens on singer Ellie Rowsell, every inch the folk-pixie, we changed the name. ‘Wednesday’ was one song that was written when it was just, me and Josh on our then hear the first few bars of what promises to own, just for fun, on computers and stuff like that.” be an acoustic crooner. Cue crashing drums and With a career as indie darlings taking off fast, a neurotic, punkish electric guitar riff, and we see Rowsell and company undertook a deliberate left the leather-jacketed band members constructively turn, away from any hint of a Juno-esque folkster critique Rowsell’s music taste. With a hammer. image. “I think it was because previously everyone “I always played with Joff [Oddie] who plays guitar, so we always played the toilet circuit, playing had described us as some kind of cute, twee folk band. We were like ‘um, that’s not really what we acoustically just kind of as a hobby,” Rowsell says want to be.’” of the band’s origins. “I didn’t really think that I With that in mind, the band held fire on the first could be in a band, you know, some people are like, song Rowsell had completed for them, ‘Bros’, an destined to do it; like as soon as they’re born they know that they want to do it, and we weren’t really upbeat slice of indie pop-rock that could be a lost gem from the Cure’s back catalogue. She recalls like that.”

When the hard-gigging acoustic duo were joined thinking, “Let’s not put out ‘Bros’, ‘cause it was by rhythm section Joel Amey and Theo Ellis, a wilder still quite sweet, whereas ‘Fluffy’ was like, really sound reminiscent of 90s alternative rock emerged. horrible.” This is a band that has something of an edge.

Some of the troubadour roots are still evident So where does Wolf Alice’s instantly likeable in songs like the reflective ‘Wednesday’, which sound sit on the musical map? Clash magazine combines fingerpicked guitar and an introspective lyric with a hint of post-rock soundscapes. termed them “the lovechild of folk and grunge,” but

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It showed us that you can’t just not practice and go out and expect people to think you’re good, because you won’t be good

Surprisingly, there’s also an Irish connection.

Rowsell is bemused by that.

“When I was younger I used to play the tin whistle. I “I mean me and Josh listen to quite a lot of folk used to play Irish music… Every St Patrick’s day we music and I think we all listen to quite a lot of grunge music if you will, but I don’t know about the used to perform around primary schools.”

Looking ahead, Rowsell feels the best way to lovechild. I don’t know what that would sound like, follow up on the release of their successful EP but I don’t think it would sound much like us.” release is to get back in the studio. “Well, we’re kind As for the Cobain-era grunge spirit of “I hate of finishing writing our album, so we want to get myself and want to die,” that hasn’t really soured in the recording studio as soon as possible and get Wolf Alice’s outlook. Rowsell giggles, “We call it that out. Feels like a long time coming for us.”

Funge.”

Still, despite the level of success that Wolf Alice That’s not to say discipline isn’t important to the has achieved, Rowsell is very much aware that it band. Of a short tour with indie-rockers Peace, she is very tough to build on this fanbase and grab has this to say. “There was a lot of learning over people’s attentions due to the sheer number of new those three days just playing with a band who were really tight.” Rowsell is a believer in consistent artists on the scene.

“Since the internet came along there’s so much rehearsal too. “It showed us that you can’t just not saturation that a band that might have been practice and go out and expect people to think absolutely massive a few years ago can never get you’re good, because you won’t be good.” anywhere. Things like the internet make it easier Some interesting influences come up in a to get stuff out there, so it’s not all about who you conversation about Rowsell’s musical background, which, like charity, begins at home. “My dad listened know. There are pros and cons. How easy it is makes to a lot of music. Often classic stuff like the Beatles.” it harder.”

All glory may be fleeting in the modern day Sure enough, the band’s mid-pace rocker ‘Leaving You’ gives an idea of what ‘Dear Prudence’ might be industry, but with a little luck and a lot of attitude, like if Jack White had got to it before John Lennon. “funge” could be here to stay.

a cloudless horizon Australian alternative rock band, Cloud Control, sits down with Sean Hayes and talks about The Pirates of Penzance, recording studios and being personally thanked by David Grohl

At this point We were like, ‘You’ve been rocking for three decades, and you’re still nice, grounded people. This is alright. This is a good industry’

Jeremy’s lounge room. His parents would be coming breaking America is “still underway.” When asked if of the song and he thanked us, personally. He was ULRICH LENFFER of Australian alternative rock band, studio albums, supported a string of international the band had any favourite places to play, Lenffer at like, ‘Yeah, thanks guys.’ That was cool, but that was around offering us tea and coffee and lunch. You Cloud Control, speaks with the brutal honesty and acts and won the Australian Music Prize in 2011. first slips up by naming the Netherlands. He quickly about the extent of our interaction with him.” can hear the lawnmowers in the background.” calmness usually associated with bona fide musical Lenffer credits the Australian music scene for Lenffer admits that playing with acts of such realises the correct answer, “But that said, Dublin’s When asked if this relaxed atmosphere had legends. Despite their relative new appearance their original success. “It’s got a great sense of high calibre gives the group perspective. “I mean, great. We loved Dublin. Dublin’s always been fun. changed between the recording of the first and on the Australian and international music scene, community. Sydney and Melbourne have their your conception of them is of this big superstar.

You guys really like to party.” second album, Lenffer again astutely weighs the band has already racked up some exceptional own distinct sounds, but Australia as a whole is Supergrass was the first big band we supported. We When asked what fans of Cloud Control can expect up both the pros and cons of home recording, achievements, causing Lenffer’s cool, unaffected very, very supportive with music. There are a lot knew their songs and their reputation. compared to studio recording. “The first album was in the future, Lenffer is typically reserved in what demeanour to seem, almost, appropriate. of smaller bands that are selling out huge rooms, “Then when they turned up, they were just the nicest, he reveals. “You can expect some tours, we’ll be Rumours and fame have always tended to come selling a lot of albums and a lot of tickets. When we so relaxed. There was no pressure. There was no most interesting bunch of gentlemen. We were like, playing some festivals. Then when that dies down studio time ticking away. If you didn’t get the take, hand in hand, and there is an innocent one about were coming though, we got a lot of support from at the end of the year, we’re probably going to start ‘You’ve been rocking for three decades, and you’re you didn’t have to. It was quite healthy. In another Cloud Control floating around that the band actually community radio, in particular.” still nice, grounded people. This is alright. This is a recording again.” regard, it just took a lot longer.” started themselves. Lenffer is quick to dispel Cloud Control’s first album, Bliss Release, received good industry.” the rumour about their formation; that all four critical acclaim, but true to form, Lenffer doesn’t get Recording in a studio, however, allowed the band to Touring has become a way of life for this band and His insights provide a contrasting and refreshing the band has an impressive CV of supporting slots members of the group met at rehearsals for The too caught up in these reviews. “I think we did read expand and experiment with their musical sound insight into the music industry, which in recent and direction. “We were like, ‘We have a studio now. and gigs, having opened for Arcade Fire, Vampire Pirates of Penzance. reviews. We didn’t go through them all. I think it’s times has seen the self-destruction of some of its Weekend, Supergrass and The Temper Trap.

We can afford to experiment a little.’ Before we “That’s a rumour that we propagated ourselves, as a good to know that someone actually appreciates youngest and most promising names. Luckily for Lenffer recounts one particular experience with were just going to be an organic instrument, but in joke, and it keeps biting us.” How the band actually something.

Cloud Control fans, it doesn’t appear that this plight The Foo Fighters’ frontman, David Grohl. “That was formed seems dull in comparison. “We were “We get a lot of word of mouth, but when it’s written ‘Dojo Rising’ for example, we used a programmed will be seeping into the mindset of Lenffer anytime funny. It was kind of humbling, because that was a beat and played over that live. It’s things like that, actually just formed for a band competition, and down somewhere, it just legitimises it that little that we normally wouldn’t have said yes to, but this charity concert in Australia. He just came out to play soon. then we just stuck together.” bit more. We enjoy the albums, even if this or that a show for free. time we did.”

Despite the somewhat unexciting formation story, person doesn’t.”

“They were sound-checking, and we were on the The band have toured extensively throughout the band did stick together and have continued to Their debut effort seems to have been a family Cloud Control’s second album, Dream Cave, was hill listening and then we just clapped at the end grow with each new success, having released two affair. “It was recorded in the producer’s house and Australia and Europe, but Lenffer admits that released in September 2013

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The singing Pope

With a new album just released and a world tour just beginning, Ron Pope talks to Nicole Casey about connecting with fans, artistic independence, and his plans to take up golf

Ron Pope is the picture of confidence and composure for someone at the precipice of their biggest career endeavour to date. Kicking off a world tour in New York earlier this month can definitely be deemed a huge accomplishment, but as his star rises, Pope has most definitely managed to keep his feet planted firmly on solid ground.

“I grew up playing in a bar where no one cared.

People sat with their backs to me. If they turned around it was to throw a bottle or a lit cigarette at me,” he recalls, with an expression that suggests it was more than a lifetime ago. “You start making music in your bedroom by yourself… because you need to, for you. The fact that it connects you with all these people all over the world… it’s an unbelievable benefit.”

Things are only really kicking off for Pope, who hails from Georgia but currently resides in New York City. In 2005, he penned the internet hit ‘A Drop in the Ocean’, the success of which inspired Pope to pursue a solo music career.

This hypnotic song, with its heart-wrenching lyrics and melodic notes has steadily been gaining in popularity online, becoming a firm favourite to any longstanding Pope fan. Last year, however, saw ‘A Drop in the Ocean’ moving mainstream as it was featured on episodes of The Vampire Diaries, 90210, and So You Think You Can Dance.

“When you get a song on a television show, the

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At this point in my career, the fact that people show up, they buy tickets, and they’re excited to be there, you kinda can’t beat that

audience of that show is already invested, and so then you’re part of a moment. You couldn’t create that yourself. Somebody else is creating their art and they’re incorporating yours…It definitely has had a positive impact,” Pope says of the experience, and its effects on his career.

With more albums to his name than Lady Gaga and Beyoncé combined, you might question why we don’t hear more from, or even about, Pope. The reason for this could be put down to his musical independence. Apart from a brief stint with a major label in 2009, Pope has produced and released his music independently, giving him complete creative control.

“The only people that I’m beholden to are my audience, and the audience has been really receptive. Being an independent artist makes it so that you can do whatever you think is right, whatever you feel like your audience will accept.”

Most aspiring artists view a recording contract as the pinnacle of their hard struggle for recognition and the starting point from which to base a highly successful career. Pope, however, has been to the other side and can attest that the grass isn’t always greener. “[Being independent] is easier because you don’t have to feel like you have to ask anybody for anything. When I was on a major label, I wanted to go on tour and I’d have to ask for money and they could say no. And they did say no.”

With a career that both started and expanded online, Pope owes much of his success to his effective use of technology and social media. A quick search on iTunes will bring up singles in the triple digits, while a scan of Pope’s YouTube channel will show an almost equal number of videos; both personal and professional.

Speaking about the effect the internet has had on his career, Pope explains, “I embraced the fact that people are going to buy music online before a lot of artists and labels. We jumped on streaming early and have been pushing social media for a long time, before a lot of artists really heard about it.”

Pope advocates the increasing role the internet is playing in the modern day music industry. “It definitely makes the field that much more democratic. Like, everyone can have a Twitter. Taylor Swift is on Twitter, but so is your sister that has an acoustic guitar and just wrote her first song and is trying to promote it. There are a lot of things you can do now to reach people that you could never have done a decade ago.”

His latest venture, Calling Off The Dogs, is an eclectic mix of the slow, romantic ballads fans know and love, coupled with daring new sounds. The lead single, ‘Lick My Wounds’, is more apt to a crowded nightclub than a romantic movie, as so many of Pope’s previous songs were.

“It’s deceptive,” Pope says of his daring first single.

“It feels like a pop song, but it’s in mixed metre…

[The new album] takes away a lot of boundaries.

There’s really unconventional song form, there’s key changes, tempo changes, and crazy chord structures.”

Fans needn’t worry too much about Pope breaking down the boundaries. Tracks such as ‘Explain’ and ‘Off Your Feet’ show Pope staying true to form and giving fans the type of emotional depth they’ve come to expect from one of his albums.

But what’s next for Ron Pope? After all, a world tour is a hard thing to top. “I’m going to retire,” Pope laughs. “I’m thinking about taking up golf, and naps.

I’m definitely gonna be napping… This year is going to be almost the entire year on the road, and then, I don’t know.”

One thing Ron Pope does know though is “at this point in my career, the fact that people show up, they buy tickets, and they’re excited to be there, you kinda can’t beat that. Any night, in any city, anywhere in the world that people come to the show and want to be there is my favourite night on the road.”

It’s refreshing to see that an artist with his success can still get that kick out of simply having people listen to his music, something that makes it seem Pope’s is nowhere near wrapping up his music career and that his style will remain pure for years to come.

album reviews

Nina Nesbitt Peroxide

After only 19 years on this planet, Scottish songstress Nina Nesbitt has developed quite the back catalogue with five EPs already under her belt. Her latest release, Peroxide, is her first full length album and, quite frankly, it may have been best to stick to the short circuit EPs as opposed to the lengthened piece she’s created.

The album kicks off with the title track; a bouncy tune with an overly accessible mundane melody. It also sets the tone for the album, namely that Ms. Nesbitt has serious boyfriend issues. Almost every track on this album is an ode to lost love of some sort or rage at being left behind.

The album continues in this rather vapid, glossy vein for eight of its 13 tracks, making it quite the slog. Each track is laden with the same pop sensibilities, leaving hardly any room for Nesbitt’s character to shine through. Her voice is frustratingly restrained, stifling the record in full.

‘Tough Luck’ gets things back on track, with a solid musical composition and some of the strongest vocals on display, though the theme of heartbreak persists. Album highlight ‘Hold You’ comes only two tracks from the end and says a lot about the album. This is the only collaboration on the album, with Kodaline stepping up to give the track some much needed emotional weight.

Bombay Bicycle Club

St. Vincent

Augustines

Prolific, endearing and sickeningly youthful are just a handful of adjectives to describe London band Bombay Bicycle Club. Since early 2009 this cosy quartet of school friends have been churning out album upon album, each packed with emotions ranging from teenage frustration to euphoric evasion.

Their fourth instalment, So Long, See You Tomorrow, tastes of exotic flavours that reignite your senses, yet leaves an after taste of the Bombay you know and love. Bespectacled, falsetto-inclined lead vocalist Jack Steadman delved into new territories in Turkey and India to cook up their most exciting project to date.

Opening song ‘Overdone’ is a perfect welcome mat to this ten-track album, dripping of South Asian string and snarling vocals. You almost feel you’ve walked in on something you shouldn’t have. However, it’s not long before the tipping guitar pulls you further in for Steadman to question “Was it enough, when we were first in love to plant the seed and just leave?”

Female vocals are heard throughout the album too, offering the perfect side dish for this already gluttonous musical feast. While debut single ‘Carry Me’ set a slightly more aggressive tone, follow ups ‘It’s Alright Now’ and ‘Luna’ were the softened peace keepers.

Yet the real magic lies in track ‘Whenever Wherever’ as it’s not long before one can see themselves atop that festival crowd creating those summer sentiments we all associate with these four.

Never one to shy away from experimentation, St. Vincent’s latest self-titled album is full of juxtapositions in both style and content. It takes a certain amount of boldness to flee so haphazardly between various techniques and themes, but Annie Clark does this fearlessly. The result is an interesting clash of 80s electro-pop and brash indie-rock.

Abrasive guitar riffs and saccharine synths collide throughout as Clark leaps from postpunk tunes like ‘Rattlesnake’ to pop anthems such as ‘Digital Witness’. Contrastively, ‘I Prefer Your Love’ is a refreshing break from the overall surrealism and showcases Clark’s ability to tone down the energy but maintain the substance.

Lyrically, St. Vincent is a cluster of opposing and sometimes random emotions. Lyrics such as “who you gonna bed next?” are brazen, but many songs evade any concrete understanding.

Clark tackles issues of love, gender, sexuality and faith as images of the mundane and the manic dance throughout. The puzzling, sometimes schizophrenic nature of the lyrical content adds to the unwavering attention demanded by this album.

Clark’s vocal style is often in your face, while there is also a delicate, feminine quality inherent in her voice at times. From the crazed tones of ‘Birth In Reverse’, to the sensuous highs of ‘Prince Johnny’, her vocals are arrestingly beautiful. Even the moments of sleaze retain a lingering hint of glamour.

Having fought troublesomely with their label and each other throughout the creative process of their first album, Augustines’ second self-titled installment portrays how their passion for music has come up trumps. This Brooklyn trio have primed themselves, creating a rough and ready Americana indie sound.

The band, currently based in Seattle, are known for their hard-hitting sound and raw lyrics. Their newest endeavor sees them focusing on the need to push through hard times and focus on their goals. In many ways, this subject is exhausted throughout the 12 tracks, but that’s not to say there aren’t some tenacious tunes.

Debut single from the album, ‘Nothing to Lose but Your Head’, was a wise choice to introduce the new body of work as it is a prime example of how vast their capabilities stretch sonically and lyrically.

December saw Augustines support alternative rock band Frightened Rabbit and their stamp of influence is firmly emblazoned on this collection, as the drums kick sporadically and delightfully in tracks such as ‘Hold on to Anything’.

Key track ‘Cruel City’ loops and meanders hypnotically with an addictive hook and African inspired vocals, a result of the lead singer’s brief stay in Kenya last year. Elsewhere, the subdued atmosphere of ‘The Avenue’ is a welcome break from the somewhat monotony as the album’s journey comes to an end.

So Long, See You Tomorrow

St. Vincent

In A Nutshell Cheer up and get a new producer. The talent is there, but the attempt at pop stardom is hollow.

In A Nutshell May need a second listen to grasp its beauty, but unmistakenly exciting and heart raising.

In A Nutshell An impressive demonstration of Clark’s talent as she drifts from angelic pop princess to snarling indie queen with grace and ambition.

Michael O’Sullivan

Rebekah Rennick

Eva Griffin

Augustines

In A Nutshell A string of solid tracks that thread a fine line between melancholic and inspirational.

Sadhbh Deegan

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Gartlandia Photographer Rosie Hardy is an inspiration who shows it is okay to be vulnerable and show true human qualities, says Orla Gartland

Having so many people drift in and out of your life in such rapid succession means only a few really stick with you, Rosie Hardy being one

Last year I hopped across to Manchester to meet a photographer called Rosie Hardy. It was a stressful time to say the least. I was in the midst of submitting the final tracks for my first EP and hoped Rosie would be the one to capture an image striking enough to use as the front cover and iTunes artwork for the release.

After listening to some of my tunes, Rosie explained to me four image concepts that came to mind, with some clever post-production manipulation involved in each (she’s quite the Photoshop wizard). Given the little time we had it all seemed so ambitious, but something about her passion made me trust her.

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The shoot lasted less than two hours. I stumbled into her flat, had my face painted by a nice make-up lady and off we went. Despite our time pressure, the craic was mighty. I’m an absolute newbie when it comes to photoshoots and the likes but the atmosphere was great and within minutes my nerves seemed to melt away.

I’m no photographer myself, but just as a creative person I found Rosie inspiring. She held her bizarre concepts in mind throughout the shoot and executed each within five minutes or so. It was sort of like being round with your GP getting an injection.

The hype beforehand was overwhelming, but once it finished I was left there like ‘That’s it? It’s over?’

One of my favourites from the day (which accompanies this article) features me casually flying through an open window. The shot was made up of 3 or 4 different images all shot in the carpark below Rosie’s flat. It was hard to imagine the final shot whilst flailing around, pretending to swim with my belly balanced on a dining chair.

I’ve been chasing that music dream full-time now since I finished the Leaving Cert last June.

Between tours I’ve been lucky enough to meet and work with all sorts of creative people; musicians, writers, filmmakers, artists, producers. It involves a lot of travelling and re-introducing yourself but heck, it’s the best fun ever.

Having so many people drift in and out of your life in such rapid succession means only a few really

stick with you, Rosie Hardy being one. I realised a few weeks back that I waste a huge chunk of my life as a consumer of YouTube videos with no substance, so whenever I found myself killing time online I instead starting watching TED talks.

TED Talks have been given by everyone from Stephen Hawking to Bono. Not every speaker has such a high profile, but each has something brilliant and thought-provoking to say. Just type ‘TED talks into YouTube to find ‘em, they’re well worth a browse.

Rosie Hardy came to mind for me this week when her TED talk, “Creativity and Happiness” hit YouTube. As someone who often struggles with writer’s block and frequent self-doubt, what she said really hit home.

She speaks about how those in creative fields are “taking what makes you feel alive and caging it.”

She admits how people don’t often publicise how “you can cry at night because someone said you’re not good enough.”

Rosie’s work is celebrated and admired by every other photographer I’ve met. She’s shot photographs for Maroon 5, The 1975, stars from Made in Chelsea, The X Factor and The Only Way is Essex.

When someone so successful is brave enough to be so publicly vulnerable, so human, it’s feels like something special. For those just treading water and starting out with any kind of venture, I guess knowing that even those at the top of their game aren’t invincible is oddly encouraging.

Radar— The Boxing Plot From disjointed beginnings to hip-hop inclinations, Rebekah Rennick gets the scoop on Dublin’s hottest new band The Boxing Plot

The plethora of artists arriving on the Basically, they already bubbling Irish music scene has never been more explosive, diverse and downright were distrustexciting than in the last 12 months. While many ful of him bebands listed in the chronic “Ones To Watch” articles that spring forward each January cause he played seem to sink into obscurity before we’ve even rugby and they decided upon our New Year’s resolutions; Dublin based quartet The Boxing Plot are weren’t into certainly ones to keep an eye on. that, but I kept With a polished, mature sound floating in telling them he nuances of early Interpol, lead vocalist Harry Ó Cléirigh and resident drummer Maurice was into Bloc Healy are very much the typical student pair, Party wondering as much as anyone else how they’ve made it this far.

As a strong four-piece crew, The Boxing Plot’s beginnings weren’t without some mixing and matching. “I was in a band with a different singer, with the other two members (Oliver Kelly and Oscar Leonard),” explains Healy.

“We broke up and I kept telling them that Harry should be our new singer. Basically, they were distrustful of him because he played rugby and they weren’t into that, but I kept telling them he was into Bloc Party.”

“We were all in the same year in school,” adds Ó Cléirigh. “I think what really unified us was our mutual appreciation of ‘Humbug’ when it first came out. Bombay Bicycle Club and The XX had some big hits in 2009 too and we all decided it’d be cool to make music like them. Of course, our very early works are nothing like any of those bands.”

Emerging in 2009, it’s obvious that behind the welcoming four faces is a cooking pot of thought and well atuned musical ability “About this time last year we kind of had a sit down and decided to take ourselves and our music a little more seriously,” explains Ó Cléirigh.

“The two singles we have now, ‘Geist’ and ‘Heidecker’, are kind of the brain child of that process. Beforehand we had been a little bit disheartened because we had been playing very impotent and fruitless gigs that weren’t really getting us anywhere. We’d gotten a couple of recordings that had been delayed, or hadn’t been recorded properly, and were just weak sounding.”

Since then, The Boxing Plot have been grabbing the attention of radio and event managers alike, winning Phantom’s Next ICON, playing a roaring set at Hard Working Class Heroes and notably coming out tops in Budweiser’s Future Sounds, which subsequently led to the chance to work with the legendary producer Rob Kirwan.

“We kind of adopted him as our surrogate father for a while,” says Ó Cléirigh. “We were suspicious and skeptical because we were like, ‘Why is this huge corporation just investing money into nobody’s from South Side Dublin?’ It defintiely took us by surprise.”

While Ó Cléirigh describes their creative process as both “collective and corruptive,” this formula certainly seems to be working perfectly, with the exciting Other Voices festival in Derry being their next ever-rising musical pitstop.

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 Kamil Syzmanskl Genetics Wearing: Jeans – River Island, Shoes – Timberland, Jacket – Pull & Bear, Scarf – Zara, Bag – Tommy Hilfiger Fashion Influence: G-Star & Zara 2 Ali McCrery Science Wearing: Shoes – Carvela, Jeans – Zara, Bag – Prada, Jacket – Sandro and Jumper – Abercrombie and Fitch Fashion Influence: Pingo 3 Conor Meurnagh German & Italian Wearing: Jacket – ASOS, Shirt – Topman, Jeans – H&M, Shoes – Topman Fashion Influence: Personal taste

4 Charlotte Amrosche

Physiology & Politics Wearing: Coat – Vintage Shop London (Rocket), Jumper – Charity Shop, Skirt – House of Holland (Urban Outfitters), Shoes – Berty Fashion Influence: The 1920’s era and mixing different styles of clothing

5 Sean McIver Economics Wearing: Shoes – Size, Jeans – Pull & Bear, Jumper – Urban Outfitters, Coat – Topman, Scarf – Urban Outfitters Fashion Influence: Plain and wearable clothing Emily Mullen

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American Apparel: Black floppy hat – €50 ASOS: Grey Slip Dress – €28 ASOS: PEMBURY Platforms – Black – €63.20 Miss Selfridge: Black & gold choker chain – €5.50 Aldo: Pink stone ring – €8 Urban Outfitters: Blue handbag – €28

Topshop: Red and white stripe shirt – €40 ASOS Marketplace: Fedora hat – €15 Topshop: Black chino trousers – €35 ASOS Marketplace: Black loafers – €20

Online edit With online shops becoming more and more widely used, this issue’s editorial shoot displays the finest outfits that can be gleaned from online fashion destinations

WHEN YOU consider the rise in online shopping over the last decade or so, thanks to online-exclusive websites like ASOS, it was inevitable that these online stores would eventually hold a vast consumer base.

Comparing online shops like ASOS and Missguided with the more traditional in-store shopping, the experience differs hugely. However, online shopping proves to be much more efficient, while still having the same accessibility factor of a physical shop.

The endless range of clothes that submerse the likes of ASOS and Missguided, continually keep us surfing the web for key pieces, and is the reason why more and more customers are choosing to shop online.

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As ASOS launched ASOS Marketplace back in 2010, this has quickly proven to be the hotspot for many vintage lovers to pick up some very cool one-off pieces, as seen on the model Rory. It’s not overpriced vintage, like many have experienced in most thrift stores.

Rory perfectly demonstrates how to transcend two seasonal wardrobes by mixing a monochromatic jumper and black chino, with a pair of ASOS Marketplace vintage loafers. The tanned loafers act to break up the drastic severity of blackon-black. For something a little more versatile and brighter, this red vintage striped shirt adds contrast to the otherwise dull black assemblage.

The entire new-age of online shopping cornerstone is inevitably at the forefront of its game, with Topshop having had a huge 30% increase in online sales last year. The recent closure of Irish vintage store 9 Crow Street, having taken the decision to revert to having their website act as their sole means of trade, is definite proof that online shopping is currently proving more popular than ever.

With this sudden rise, it’s the online wonderstores, namely ASOS, are now stocking everything from LBD’s to Doc Martens to NARS cosmetics to countless designer brands. One can be sure to basket an entire night out worth of necessities in the

space of 10 minutes with the ease of a few clicks of your mouse; St Tropez tan and hipflask included.

Here our model Grace perfectly demonstrates how simple it is to rock an outfit, entirely bought online, with her ethereal grey slip dress from ASOS as the statement piece, and shoes and accessories all found online.

When transitioning between winter and summer wardrobes, don’t be so quick to throw all your thick-knit V-necks and 80 denier tights in the bin because (and don’t forget this) it is Ireland we live in after all.

Monochromatic looks, featuring greys, royal blues and navies can still work, but why not add a pop

of colour in the form a fruity-coloured bright lip or metallic bag, as seen here on Grace, to add a more nuanced and seasoned appeal to any chosen look?

This is undoubtedly the easiest way to subtly carry forward one’s winter attire into the warmer months.

As most retailers are now forced to compete with the popularity of online shops, the tech savvy amongst us become ever more reliant upon these sites. Given the choice between finding something to wear on a last-minute night out, shopping in a rainy Grafton Street or clicking the express shipping button online, the answer is obvious.

SARAH O’SHEA

Models: Grace McGuinness and Rory Mullen Stylist: Christin McWeeney Photographer: James Brady

#winning or #binning

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As the novelty of being back in college dissipates, Emily Mullen tries to put a cheeky grin on all your manky faces with #Winning or #Binning

#winning

Lorde @ the Grammys

We love your witch-trial chic babes #snogme #HEARDBLACKISTHENEWBLACK

#binning

Garth Brooks’ Concert

Imagine all the denim on denim #ohtheinhumanityofit

ASOS: T-Shirt with Leather Look Panel – €25.28 Boohoo: Block Stripe Cable Knit Jumper – €16 Topshop: Black skinny Jeans – €65 ASOS Marketplace – Brown Loafers – €17.00

Misguided: PVC black skirt – €27.70 Misguided: Houndstooth Spaghetti strap top – €13.84 ASOS: PEMBURY Platforms – Black – €63.20 Topshop: Metallic bag – €26.00

Bieber’s Mugshot Skin Dig-dig-digging the orange on you but bbz u forgot ur concealer #awks

PVC Skirts

Now not only reserved for brothel employees or cougars with shapeless legs and no shame, but for the fashionable amongst us too #UlooklikePixieLottbabes

Cillian Murphy

He hasn’t been in the new much lately and he’s not exactly wearing anything particularly #trending lately, but we just remembered how much of a ride he is #yum

The effing rain

Dear sky, kant you see I just curled my hair, you are the most basic of basic bitches right now? #thedrownedratlookisNOTchic

K.Kutes Cobain

Nearly 20 years since Kurt Cobain died but me oh my whatababe. #Isitoktofancyaghost?

The duck’s arse hairstyle

A few sightings have been made on catwalks across the pond, please don’t let this become a #trend boys. #urtoatsquackers #sticktothequiffs

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Culture Woulfe

The Little Museum of Dublin—Cushman Collection Take a step back in time to the Dublin of the swinging sixties with Laura Woulfe as she checks out the Cushman Collection at The Little Museum of Dublin

Imagine Dublin roads crowded by cyclists, colourful minis and scooters. Imagine a squeaky-clean O’Connell Street and the jolly café that invented the famous knickerbocker glory. Imagine a Georges Street Arcade that was akin to a farmers’ market with horses pulling carriages filled with goods right outside.

These scenes sound unbelievable to the contemporary Dublin inhabitant, however, thanks to the University of Indiana these glimpses of 1960s Dublin can be seen at the Little Museum of Dublin right opposite St Stephen’s Green.

The newly installed exhibition hosts an array of photographs taken by American Charles Cushman on his visit to Ireland in 1961. While there are many images of Dublin streets in the 1960s taken by Irish photographers, Cushman’s collection are particularly interesting as they are the first ever colour photos taken of the Irish capital.

Aesthetically, the exhibition runs a little short and in comparison to the rest of this charming museum, the room which hosts the exhibition is lacking character, as well as central heating. The images on display are pleasing to view and have each gained a very instagram-like tint over the years, however, largely the images portray little artistic talent.

Ahead of the game Naomi Elster, editor of HeadSpace Magazine, talks to Ellie Gehlert about supporting people with mental health problems through art and writing

Although mental health awareness in Ireland has seen improvements in recent years, there is still a lack of understanding of “what it is really like to suffer from mental health issues,” says Naomi Elster, the editor of HeadSpace Magazine.

As a magazine that facilitates people with mental health issues to express their emotions through art and writing, HeadSpace aims at offering that kind of understanding. It is distributed to psychiatric wards and mental health support centres across Ireland and publishes stories, poems and art. According to Elster, this is based in the belief that it is often possible “through creativity, to communicate about things too difficult to address correctly.”

Apart from raising awareness on mental health issues in society, the primary purpose of HeadSpace is to give people in treatment the hope and strength to go through this experience and to make them feel less isolated. Seeing the problems they are dealing with relayed in a creative way by others who have had similar experiences helps the patients to feel less lonely and offers a new channel of reflection to them.

HeadSpace is the first project to offer a forum for artists to publish their works themed around mental health. Elster explains that showcasing these stunning pieces of art and writing from people who themselves have suffered from mental health issue

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refutes a common misconception; namely “that people who suffer illness are always compromised in their intellect and ability to deal with life, even after they make a full recovery.”

For providing this forum, the HeadSpace team has not only received a grant from Rehab Ireland Visual and Performing Arts Fund for the second issue, but has seen media coverage from the Irish Times and Newstalk FM and has gotten an incredibly positive response from its readership.

To have the hard work acknowledged and “to have people encourage us to keep going, really does mean a lot to us,” says Elster as she recounts the strenuous months of fundraising to realize the project. “After a while you feel a bit desperate… but it felt too important not to try.”

The HeadSpace team are hoping to keep the project growing and are already preparing the new issue, which is to be launched in summer.

Submissions for it will open in March, but as Elster points out, anyone can help support the cause by spreading the word, sharing on Facebook, volunteering or buying a copy for just €5. “We are entirely non-profit and volunteer run, so all money raised goes into providing free copies to patients.”

For more information on how you can read, submit to, or support HeadSpace, visit www.headspacemagazine.com or facebook.com/HeadSpaceForAll

Rather, the photographs act as illuminating documents, a portal into Dublin of the 1960s, which in itself is utterly fascinating.

While the room may be a bit chilly, the friendliness of the employees of the Little Museum of Dublin warms the cockles. Each photograph is accompanied by a contemporary image of the same area, which allow for in situ games of ‘spot the difference’ between then and now.

Similarly, many of the photos are also accompanied by snippets of historic information of the pictured area in the 1960s, anecdotes about Irish life fifty years ago and amusing trivia which is in keeping with the museum’s very casual yet intellectual attitude to all of their collections.

The Little Museum of Dublin, named as “Dublin’s best museum experience” by The Irish Times, is not a national museum and so there is a small entrance fee of €4.50 for students, so while you’re there you may as well check out the rest of the museum too. The museum’s main collections are housed in a wonderfully homely atmosphere and exhibit a vast array of objects and images exploring the history of Dublin City and its inhabitants in the 20th century.

The Little Museum of Dublin, Cushman Collection, Admission – Adults: €7, Students: €4.50

Fatal Fourway Best Best underdog in a sports film

Gus the mule—Gus Emily Longworth As in all good underdog sports films, the dead end outlook of Team A is established within the first 30 seconds of screenplay. Team A are bottom of the league and down on their luck. Not to mention that Team A’s coach is pretty useless too and even their mascots/marching band/ cheerleaders are ugly/fat.

Enter Protagonist A, the adversity-fighting underdog who’ll stop at nothing to help Team A win the Sports Ball League, even when the odds are against them and the chips are down. In Gus, this role is filled by Gus, the Yugoslavian mule who’s too cool for mule school.

Once drafted on to the team, Gus begins

kicking the team to victory! While never forgetting to make time to encourage the budding romance between his owner and Team A’s stunning secretary, Debbie.

It’s not long before Opponent Team A begin trying to sabotage Gus by throwing him off his game. Can he come out of nowhere to go the distance and run that extra mule mile?

With everyone’s favourite 911 conspiracy theorist Ed Asner as team owner Hank, and Gus the mule giving an incredible performance in the role of Gus the mule, it’s no wonder the film was the recipient of the Equine in Motion Picture Award 1977 (horsefame. com et al., 1999).

The Jamaican national bobsleigh team —Cool Runnings Steven Balbirnie Just in time for the Winter Olympics, I have the opportunity to tell you how Cool Runnings is the best underdog sports films ever made.

As familiar icons to anyone who grew up in the 90s, the motley crew consists of the ever-optimistic Derice, Sanka and his lucky egg, a bald man who calls himself Yul Brenner (go watch The Magnificent Seven to understand this reference kids) and Junior, who destroyed all their Olympic sprinting dreams.

Grouping together to form Jamaica’s first ever bobsled team, they are shunned by their own Olympic Council and ridiculed by their competitors, facing an uphill battle from all sides.

As with all great sports movies, this is not just

a story of athletes triumphing in the cliff face of adversity, it is also about their coach’s redemption.

In this case, John Candy is a disgraced former Olympian giving the best performance of his career.

As Irving Blitzer, Candy gets to utter the thoughtprovoking line, “A gold medal is a wonderful thing, but if you’re not enough without it, you’ll never be enough with it.”

They may not win any medals, but they win the respect of their peers, which is just as important. Best of all, it’s based on a true story. This film is so influential that the bobsled team representing Jamaica in Sochi this year have dubbed themselves Cool Runnings, The Second Generation. You can’t argue with that.

Daniel Larusso—Karate Kid Jack Walsh I don’t even need to spend a paragraph or two sweeping the legs of all of my foes, everyone tie up your rising sun bandanas as I tell you why exactly The Karate Kid is the bestest underdog sports movie of all time. As a side note, don’t wear a rising sun bandana; those things are so damn racist.

This Californian mini-Rocky has all you need for a fun frolicking and vague look into how washing a PTSD-suffering Japanese man’s car can make you beat up all the slightly Aryan bullies.

Featuring a majestically pudgy and sneerish Italian-American, Ralph Macchio, as the embodiment of basement martial artists everywhere who befriends the girl of everyone’s

dreams. He has to fight her ex-boyfriend at the brilliantly titled All-Valley Under-18 Karate Tournament. This movie is literally one seventh the plot of Scott Pilgrim, which is a good thing, as Scott Pilgrim was atrocious.

This film shows that ultimately, sports are all about blind luck. Daniel-san literally closes his eyes and does the crane stance, which nobody taught him, and front kicks the handsome blonde guy into complete obscurity.

If you don’t like the Karate Kid, you’re probably a horrible person who doesn’t like montages of teenage violence played to ‘You’re the Best’ by Joe Esposito. Back to the Cobra Kai dojo with you.

The Toros—Bring it on Laura Bell “Hot girls, we have problems too… we’re just like you, except we’re hot.” Such is the way of the world, embodied in a superior fashion by rival cheer squads the Toros and the Clovers who must battle it out over high kicks, catchy rhymes, and intellectual copyright in this millennial tour de force.

There’s trouble in Cheer Paradise when it comes out that the Toros’ former captain, Red, has whipped out her magical lasso of white privilege and stolen a show stopping routine created by the underfunded East Compton Clovers, on the basis that the teams don’t run in the same circles.

Faith from Buffy the Vampire Slayer here, with the equally unlikely name of Missy, must now step

in with her ever-sassy attitude to set the Toros straight and show that everything is not “five by five.”

But this is not a democracy, it’s a cheerocracy, and it’s all the Clovers can do to try raise funds they need to go to Nationals, the only venue appropriate for their complete destruction of Kristen Dunst and all her self-actualising hard work.

Of course, they make the money and win the competition with dignity, refusing a guilty cheque from the Toros and proving that true sportsmanship and talent will always win out. “I know you don’t think a white girl made that shit up.” No, indeed.

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The Back Page “Basically, they were distrustful of him because he played rugby and they weren’t into that, but I kept telling them he was into Bloc Party” Maurice Healy of The Boxing Plot vouches for his friend

“I just thought well they are artists, you know they’re kind of outsider artists but you know they are kind of Zen poets” Broken Song director Claire Dix describing the protagonists of her acclaimed documentary

“I held Pendleton Ward at gun point” John Dimaggio jokes about how he got the role of Jake the Dog in Adventure Time, we hope

“They were soundchecking, and we were on the hill listening and then we just clapped at the end of the song and he thanked us, personally. We were like, “that’s cool, three little random dudes up on a hill.” He was like, “yeah, thanks guys.” That was about the extent of our interaction with him” Ulrich Lenffer of Cloud Control on his only interaction with Dave Grohl

240,000

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$51bn

The number of tickets sold in 90 minutes for Garth Brooks’ three nights at the Croke Park this July

The number of days set aside to recognise the start of the Chinese new year, which began on Friday

The estimated cost of the Sochi Winter Olympics, making them the most expensive in history. London Olympics in 2012 cost $15bn, while the Beijing games in 2008 cost $40bn

artwork of the week

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sudoku