Battle stations: Five unsigned acts will fight it out at Whelan’s, Dublin, on December 1st to be crowned winners of Phantom …

Battle stations:Five unsigned acts will fight it out at Whelan's, Dublin, on December 1st to be crowned winners of Phantom FM's Next Becks Thing.

Listen up:

Next year is looking a bumper one for albums. In January alone there will be releases by Adele, The Go! Team, Death Cab for Cutie and Peter, Bjorn and John.

Twin tunes

READ MORE

: Richard D James says he has six albums’ worth of material ready to be released. His last studio album as Aphex Twin was 2001’s

Drukqs

.


Soothing news:

Synth-poppers Hurts will play Dublin’s Academy on February 7th. Tickets are on sale now.

Lauren Murphy

Lauren Murphy

Lauren Murphy is a freelance journalist and broadcaster. She writes about music and the arts for The Irish Times