Casiotone For The Painfully bring their collection of indie synth pop tunes to the Black Box on Saturday 8th March. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone is the musical alias of American film school dropout Owen Ashworth, who realised that recording songs was a more cost effective means of storytelling than film-making. So Ashworth developed a lo-fi indie pop aesthetic utilising a Casio SK-1, a range of Casiotones and a four track on a 4-track cassette and the occasional contributions from friends, that craftly captured the pioneering excitement of early '80's electronic music. Over the last decade, Ashworth has carved a reputation as one of the best songwriters in independent music, documenting the romantic trials and travails of twenty somethings with intimate character studies that are reminiscent of the witty melancholia of The Smiths and Stephen Merritt's Magnetic Fields."The American Arab Strap" is another comparision often made.. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone unleashed an emotional, homemade brand of synth pop with the bedroom classics of the debut album, Answering Machine Music, the bittersweet indie pop of Pocket Symphonies for Lonesome Subway Cars and the wistful, warm electronica of Twinkle Echo. Deciding to step beyond the limitations of his bedroom recording project, Ashworth expanded his sound into a small orchestra of pianos, organs, strings, flutes, pedal steel guitars, drums, drum machines and synthesizers to create the ambitious sound of his last album, Etiquette. Ashworth makes stylistic leaps through dark Euro synth pop, country-tinged techno and classic 60's bubblegum pop with infectious new tunes like "I Love Creedence", "Cold White Christmas" and "New Year's Kiss". CFTPA will be joined on stage by Jenny Herbinson, the vocalist from Etiquette and a number of his recent singles. All four of CFTPA's albums have been released on Tomlab.

Glasgow's 1990s debut album, Cookies (Rough Trade Records), dragged The Rolling Stones, Velvets, The Fall and Modern Lovers out of the bedroom, and onto the dance-floor, with classic party-rock assets You Made Me Like It, You're Supposed To Be My Friend and See You At The Lights. Lead singer Jackie McKeown was the founding member of Scottish Indie band The Yummy Fur alongside Alex Kapranos and Paul Thomson from Franz Ferdinand. Anyone who witnessed their previous Belfast shows with CSS and The Long Blondes will know that 1990s play music "like a blonde gets out of a car".

How to describe Ulrich Schnauss's music? Let's see. It's shoe-gazing heroes. Slowdive headlining a rave. It's krautrock plunging headlong into the celestial raptures of the Cocteau Twins. It's U2 if Brian Eno had ousted Bono and commandeered the band in 1985. It's Balearic with a view of the Baltic instead of the Mediterranean. It's art-techno for the heart as well as the head. It's stadium chill-out, as immense as a festival field and as intimate as a bedroom. It's celebration and catharsis. It's vapour trails and meteor showers. And it's very, very good. Ulrich's third album, Goodbye, was released in Summer 2007 on Independiente Records.

The prodigal brainchild of aural non-conformist David Longstreth, Dirty Projectors cast a kaleidoscopic glare far beyond the variegated province of experimental rock. Their perpetually inventive, evolving aesthetic is buttressed by skewed guitars, skyscraper strings - and, not least, Longstreth's unparagoned larynx - into a livid anthology that variously chimes with Prince, Outkast and Bjork. Little wonder they've been widely extolled as the last guardians of rock 'n' roll. Their latest album, Rise Above (Rough Trade) is a halfremembered re-imagining of Black Flag's coruscating masterwork Damaged. Rise Aboverevokes the original's hardcore brutality for a delirious acquisition of volatile tempos, unorthodox vocals, fitful wig-outs and lambent guitars. It is, of course, spectacular. Portland Oregon's Yacht, is an amalgamation of self-taught dance moves and anthemic electro-power jams all played backwards and covered in cherry cola.

We are proud to announce the return to Belfast of some of Japan’s foremost musical innovators. Longtime FC Music favorites The Acid Mothers Temple core will be joined on this occasion by the mighty Ruins. Three musicians play in 7 combos in one show. THE ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE SWR. The Acid Mothers Temple has rapidly become acclaimed as the greatest, most extreme trip psychedelic group in the world. Releases have appeared on labels around the world at an amazing pace, and the magnificence of their live performances is already being whispered of as legendary. SWR is the AMT Family's most powerful battle-formation yet. ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE SWR features Tsuyama and Kawabata from the original AMT and Yoshida from Ruins on drums. Their crushingly acute freak out sound pulverizes the world's legions of wannabe psych groups. RUINS ALONE Yoshida Tatsuya is one of the most innovative drummer/composer/improvisers in Japan's music scene. He is the pioneer of Drum & Bass duo RUINS which was founded by Yoshida in '85. The music is complicated and mysterious, and songs are sung in a language of their own invention. It's high-tension, wild, heavy, speedy, acute, and powerful. The tremendous ensemble never sounded like they were only two players. Now RUINS has no bassist and recently Yoshida has been playing as RUINS ALONE. This is the same mind blowing RUINS songs with sampled bass. KAWABATA MAKOTO (Solo) Kawabata Makoto is best known for his speed-demon noise-fuzz guitar in Acid Mothers Temple, but he is also widely active as an unparalleled drone guitarist. Drawing upon a huge reservoir of original techniques including metal glissando and bow-work that can summon up the sound of a string ensemble or orchestra, his work in this area cannot be simply categorized as minimal, drone or experimental. You'll find it hard to believe that a single guitar can create sonic worlds of such meditative and elegant depth.

B-Music is an independent collective of DJs, musicians and music lovers dedicated to the obsessive and painstaking pursual of obscure, obsolete, exquisitely obnoxious, unbelievable, underexposed and undeniably delectable discs of experimental pop music from the psyched-out sixties and seventies. B-Music.co.uk provides a pocket library for discerning aficionados of fascinating rhythms from six times around the globe - unifying record collectors, beat diggers, fanatics of the avant-garde and trash-merchants alike. Centred around the Mancunian eponymous travelling club and bar night - hosted by Andy Votel (Twisted Nerve) and Dominic Thomas - and along with twin record labels Finders Keepers and Delay 68, B-Music represents a passionate, un-blinkered approach to the culmination of way-out sounds encompassing all elements of off-kilter counter-culture: Psych Prog Space Rock Ye-Ye Euro Beat Folk Funk Jazz and Whacked Out Movie Musak. Joining the lads in Belfast will be CHRIS GEDDES from BELLE & SEBASTIAN. Once described as the greatest Scottish band ever Chris brings the noise with a truly eclectic mix of sounds dispelling the notion that djs from bands are on the whole wick as shit. Bringing up the rare is Belfasts own SARGE who plays them crazy shit records from the olden days. All in all it’s a bloody tremendous line up of spin merchants from all over the British isles to excite and delight you with their rare vinyl records from all over the flippin globe so expect FREAKBEATS, STRANGE FUNKS, BIG DRUM SOUNDS, SWAMPY FUZZ GUITARS, GARAGE GRINDINGS, PSYCHEDELIC SWIRLERS, HEAVY ACID DROPS, KLAZY KRAUT & PROGGY EAR WRESTLINGS, LIGHT FOLK GROOVERS AND JUST LOADS OF STUFF YOU AINT HEARD BEFORE……….its all gonna go down like that. So if you’re opened-minded about new old music and wanna hear something different to the drudge of today you really must check it out one time.

Palindromic Berlin group To Rococo Rot are among the most influential and innovative acts in electronic music. They returned in 2007 with the masterful ABC123 (Domino Records) based on a commission to mark the 50th anniversary of the Helvetica typeface. To Rococo Rot is one of the most innovative electronica bands in recent times. The band was formed in 1995 in Berlin by Stefan Schneider of Kreidler, Robert Lippock, and Ronald Lippock (who is involved with Tarwater) as a collaborative work to produce the soundtrack for an exhibition of Roland’s lithographs. Since then they have gone on to release some of the most outstanding and seminal electronic music of recent years on releases such as including ‘Veiculo’ (1997), ‘The Amateur View’ (1999), ‘Kölner Brett’ (2001), ‘Music Is a Hungry Ghost’ (2001) and ‘Hotel Morgen’ (2004) for labels such as Domino, Staubgold and Mute. They have collaborated with artists as diverse as Mira Calix, Barbara Morgenstern, Alexander Balenescu and Ludovico Einaudi.

Now on her sixth album ('Saltbreakers' - Nonesuch Records), Laura Veirs continues to be one of the most enigmatic talents on the US singer-songwriter scene, fascinating with both her guitar style and nature-driven lyrics. Having expanded her sound on 2005's 'Year of Meteors', Veirs pushes herself even further here: 'Saltbreakers' is her most diverse yet also most accessible album having been recorded in Seattle with Tucker Martine (The Decemberists) once again producing and mixing. One of that ever decreasing group that can draw you back to a lyric sheet again and again, Veirs journeys through styles and doesn't lose her way. Here the rocky 'Phantom Mountain', the quirky pop of 'Don't Lose Yourself', the country of 'To the Cowboy' and the brooding 'Ocean Night Song' all co-exist. She's also one of that even smaller group that tries to make every song as distinctive as possible. And on a record that's concerned with the life aquatic, you won't have to dive too deep to find treasure.

You know he is, he realllly is! thank you!

Formed in Melbourne in late 2002, DEVASTATIONS were from the outset mining a well of their own, preferring understated emotion and veiled menace to the primal strut and bluster of the much-hyped 'new rock' of the time. The critical response to their debut album, released in 2003 - described by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in Mojo magazine as "the best thing I've heard all year" - earned the trio supports slots with the Dirty Three, Cat Power, Tindersticks and the Black Heart Procession - but the Devastations always had their sights set further afield. The group has now released three albums. 2003’s self-titled debut won them a following in Europe, and that’s where they created 2005’s “Coal,” (ATP Recordings) an album that raised their profile considerably both home and abroad. Nominated for the Australian Music Prize (AMP), it put them in contention with esteemed countrymen like the Go-Betweens, Ben Lee and Wolfmother. The record went on to receive praise in such antipodal press outlets as Uncut (four stars), Pitchfork (7.5 rating) and Q Magazine ("cultdom seems assured; more may follow. Meanwhile, the band mounted their first major tours of the United States and Europe, capping off a year of non-stop activity with a triumphant appearance this April at the Dirty Three-curated All Tomorrow's Parties festival in England. Finally, “Coal” earned the musicians a place at Beggars Banquet. “Yes, U” - the first album recorded for the label - marks a striking evolution. Previous records have been praised for their gothic detailing and subtle use of instrumental colouration (harmonium, Optigan, rhythm box, keyboards, strings, et. al). Devastations earned a reputation as well-refined miserablists and classic-minded balladeers, specialists in the sub-genre known as orch-pop. This was a mixed blessing. Unlike the artists to whom they were compared (Bad Seeds, Tindersticks, Go-Betweens), Devastations’ songs were not intended as weepers, and their arrangements did not fill up every nook and cranny with suffocating detail. Rather, they were particularly notable for their use of space and careful construction. The noir moods did not seem like a plea for sympathy, or an indicator of depression, but a glimmer of how one might find salvation. The band that greets us on new album “Yes, U” have sloughed off their previous history, and landed upon a path to the future. Recorded in Berlin, where they now reside, with Jeremy Glover and mixed in New York City with Chris Coady (Blonde Redhead, TV on the Radio), it still hints at spiritual predecessors like Serge Gainsbourg and the Velvet Underground - urbane artists who revelled in the life of the metropolis, with all its glamorous, grimy, and sensuous details. But it also brings to mind thornier cosmopolitans such as Suicide, Scott Walker and Yoko Ono - deep thinkers all, each noted for creating treacherous sonic environments and tangible, physical sounds.